In an endeavor to skill and upskill the youth in relevant new age skills, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has urged the Indian states to further expand the new age courses across their respective training centers.  The aim is to keep in pace with the changing digital technology age towards building ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ by meeting the local demand for skilled workforce in the State and also to increase the footprints of Indian workers in national and international markets.

Directorate General of Training (DGT), the apex organization of MSDE for development and co-ordination of the vocational training across the country, will be providing all possible technical support to the States for formulation of new proposals and training of instructors/trainers for such new-age courses. In this regard, DGT has already introduced 13 National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) compliant New-Age courses that include Data Analysts and Scientists, Technician Mechatronics, Smart Agriculture, Cloud Computing, Process Automation Experts, User Experience and Human-Machine Interaction Designers, Blockchain Specialists, Software and Applications Developers, Geoinformatics Assistant, AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Big Data Specialists, Information Security Analysts, Robotics Engineers and Ecommerce and Social Media Specialists. The duration of these training courses varies from 6 months to 2 years.

The technologies in manufacturing and services are rapidly transforming and the mechanical and manual interventions are increasingly becoming digitally and artificial-intelligence led. This makes it imperative that the ITIs are able to train new collar workers who are adept in these technologies. The courses have been developed in consultation and active participation of industrial experts, indicating wide demand and robust curriculum. In this connection, DGT had also written to the Additional Chief/Principal Secretaries of Technical Skill Education vide a letter dated 12^th June 2020 requesting launch of the new age courses in all ITIs.

Speaking about the initiative, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said, “The new wave of technology revolution is poised to change the nature of jobs and in order to keep pace with this changing nature, we need to undertake skilling of future workforce in relevant technology areas to meet the future demands of industries. The need of the hour is to restructure the current academic framework of ITIs to offer more robust technical programs in new technology areas of Industrial Revolution 4.0 like Data Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Blockchain etc.”

In an effort to align with the needs of industry and training in latest technology, DGT has signed various Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with technology companies to boost 21^st century digital skill set training programmes as per Industry 4.0 revolution. The key players which DGT collaborated with include - IBM India Pvt. Ltd., SAP India, Microsoft Corp. (India) Ltd., NASSCOM, Quest Alliance, Accenture and CISCO etc. These MoU’s have enabled and initiated several tech trainings across the country.

YB/SK

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