1. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana- Flagship skill development program of MSDE launched in 2015 to mobilize, train, certify large number of youths to take up industry relevant skill training. RPL was one of its kind initiatives which recognized existing skilled class with a certification

PMKVY 3.0 was launched on 15th January 2021 to train youths in following three components:

• Short term Training (STT) for fresh skilling of school/college dropouts and unemployed youth
• Recognition of Prior Learning to recognize existing skills
• Special Projects to address skilling requirements of the vulnerable groups and permit certain flexibility in conduct of short-term trainings.
  • It was implemented across the country by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs).
  • Responding to the emerging need, Customised Crash Course Programme for COVID Warriors was launched for training in six Health care sector Job Roles.
  • To utilize the existing infrastructure in educational institutions and in line with NEP 2020, Skill Hub Initiative was also launched under PMKVY 3.0.
  • As per reported figures, 7.36 lakh candidates have been trained/oriented under the Scheme in lines with the overall target out of which 1.20 lakh candidates have been trained in Customised Crash Course for Covid Warriors program.

Skill Hubs: Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in consultation with Ministry of Education (MoE) has planned to implement the ‘Skill Hub Initiative’ under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 3.0 (PMKVY 3.0). Scheme aims to facilitate and make education more relevant and create industry fit skilled workforce.

Skill Hubs are nodal skill centres identified to provide skill development and vocational training opportunities to target population segments from class 6-8th (introduction to world-of-work through orientation, industry visits, bag-less days), 9th to 12th (aimed at exposing students to skill development avenues), school dropouts and out-of-education (aimed for academic credit, mainstreaming back to education and or apprenticeship and employment linkages).

Over the last one year, 2.28 lakhs students enrolled in 1957 Skill Hubs opened till now, spread across government schools, universities, colleges, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, ITIs, CBSE schools, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras.

2. Re-energizing and re-imagining the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs): having a strong equity in skill training since pre-independence era

• Drone courses: - 116 Govt ITIs are given approval for running Drone courses.
  • Dual System of Training: 274 Govt ITIs are given approval for running DST
  • Affiliation process has been simplified by formation of State Skill Development and Entrepreneurship committee (SSDEC).
  • Conducted first ever convocation for more than 14000 ITIs at National, State and ITI level on 17th Sept 2022 for more than 8.5 lakh trainees with a participation of 1.1 million virtually. The event was chaired by the Union Minister, SDE and virtually addressed by the Prime Minister.
  • Mode of Examination for ITI trainees changed from conventional mode (OMR based) to Computer Based Test (CBT) resulting in reduced result processing time to 15 days.
  • One-click solution implementation for registering the trainees in NIOS, IGNOU and Apprenticeship through API which led to ease of doing business. More than 3 lakh trainees registered in a short span of 3 months.
  • For the session 2022-23, 73 new Government Institute of Training of Trainers (IToTs) were affiliated which enhanced the seating capacity by 2320 under CITS.
  • Under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) scheme, a total of 8,292 candidates registered on the online portal for the session 2022-23.
  • 21 NSTIs have been registered as NIESBUD centres for entrepreneurship courses and 35 NSTIs as NIOS and IGNOU centres for certifications higher education and degree certification courses.
• To align DGT qualifications with the National Credit framework, in view of NEP 2020, DGT rationalize notional hours of CTS Courses from present annual 1,600 hours to 1,200 hours (for one- and two-year trades) and from 800 hours to 600 hours for six-month trades in line with School and Higher Education. Also, now CTS curricula have 150 hours of On-the-Job Training (OJT)/ Group Project in each year for better industry alignment for job readiness, and optional courses of up to 240 hours (course through NIOS for 10th/ 12th class certificate, or, add on short term courses of up to 240 hours).
• MoU with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS)- Open pathway for National Trade Certificate (NTC) holder or undergoing training under CTS in NSQF compliant trades, to obtain secondary and senior secondary certificate for 8th and 10th pass respectively by NIOS.
• MoU with IGNOU- MSDE has also signed MoU with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) with aim to conceptualize the plan and implement the envisaged framework for candidates from skill training institutions such as NSTIs, ITIs, JSS and PMKKs etc. to provide them a pathway to register for and complete their graduation degree.

• More than 15000 candidates have been trained by STRIVE ITIs under Skill Hub Initiative and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 3.0.

3. Digital Skilling:

• Started in October 2019, Bharatskills is a Central Digital Repository for skills which provides NSQF curriculum, course material, videos, question banks and mock tests for students and trainers of ITIs/NSTIs in 06 languages. The portal helps trainers and trainees to have easy access to books, practice papers, learning videos which enable them to learn their topics easily, outside the classroom set-up. Total number of users as on 10^th December 2022 is 47.66 lakh with more than 1.96 crore hits.

• Links to various other programs for employability skills, advanced new age skills by industry partners- IBM, CISCO, Quest Alliance, Microsoft, NASSCOM, Adobe etc. have been provided on the Bharatskills portal to make the trainees industry ready. About 17 lakhs trainees have been benefitted from these digital programs.

• Summary of trainees trained till date: ~17 lakh

• Bharatskills has been awarded with Silver award under National Awards for e-Governance Scheme 2021-2022 under category “Excellence in Providing Citizen Centric Delivery”. Also, Bharatskills has been rated as No.1 skill portal for digital skilling by National Skills Network.

• Creating Awareness towards Covid-19 through eSkillIndia

1. Enabling access to Digital Learning Resources on 6 defined short courses for Covid Frontline workers training
2. Access to Government’s iGOT App – Diksha portal. ILO’s Guidelines on Managing TVET, Teaching and Learning Online during COVID
3. Partnered with Amazon to drive Covid-19 related awareness
4. Organized an awareness and sensitization webinar on COVID 19 second wave for the skilling ecosystem. This webinar aimed at increasing awareness about the pandemic and in disseminating right information on COVID 19 management. The webinar witnessed a participation of 450+ candidates including Trainers, students, SSC Members, Training Center staff.

• Sensitizing Indian Youth towards 21^st Century skills to make them employable
  1. NSDC and American India Foundation (AIF) partnered towards Skill India Mission for enhancing the employability skills of 1 lakh Indian Youth by offering Digital course on employability enhancement through eSkill Indi
  2. Digital skilling of 400 candidates for Powerlinks enabled through eSkill India, thereby imparting Skill Development training in Lucknow, Bareilly and Varanasi, on specific skills to underserved youth.
  3. Imparted reimbursable digital skilling on employability enhancer kit - to 3040 candidates with NTPC and 240 candidates with SBI Card, accompanied with online assessment and eCertification.
  4. eSkill India has launched eLearning modules on- ‘Sensitization towards People with Disability’ accessible for FREE in partnership with National Star College, UK, and in association with FCDO-UK. The eight elearning modules have been designed to empower practitioners in management, teaching, training, assessing, support roles as well as employers, health care professionals, co-workers, co-students, and organizational leaders who work with people with disabilities.        

• eSkill India supported digital skilling by conducting various webinars:
  1. Organized live Digital skilling sessions for Students and trainers to help them gain insights regarding the rich variety of digital learning resources aggregated to enhance their center-batch learning progress, accessible through the eSkill India portal and its mobile apps. These sessions benefitted over 2500 candidates including students and trainers.
  2. Organised workshop with State Engagement Officers (SEOs), enabling them to take the benefit of digital skilling through eSkill India to their respective states.

• Launch of New Employability Skills Curriculum and Content

The New Employability Skills curricula co-developed in association with Quest alliance team under the guidance of MSDE, was launched today by the Ministers of State for Education at ‘Shikshak Parv 2022’. The curriculum will provide three key benefits to learners: building a self-learning mindset, becoming career-ready in a post-pandemic world, and developing awareness around new careers and being equipped with 21st century skills and will be utilized across the MSDE ecosystem.

The e-Books were also made available on NSDC’s eSkillIndia portal. eLearning content will soon be made available to the public through NSDC’s eLearning modules.

3. Market-Led Demand-driven skilling aligning to Industry 4.0:

• The Government has a strong focus on development of future skills across domains such as Drone, Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Electric Vehicle (EV), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML), 5G technologies, Mechatronics, Cloud Computing, Block chain, Extended reality (XR) including Augmented and Virtual reality, Cyber Security, 3D Printing, VLSI design among many others which shall drive the economy forward as a manufacturing and services driver.

• National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Farm Forestry Development Cooperative (IFFCO) and WOW Factors India to explore options for skilling farmers and other aspirants in using and promoting drones for alternative fertilizers such as nano urea and other organic ones. The MoU will focus on the use of new technology, including drones and AI-based decision support systems, which will help reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and low-cost organic inputs. It also aims to support start-ups for innovations, helping in increasing productivity and contributing immensely to improving the condition of farmers

4. Skill India for Women Empowerment

• In line with the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's visionary program 'Mission Karmayogi', Ministry of Skill has imparted self-defense training to women under "My Safety, My Responsibility" programme.

• The MSDE had entered into an agreement with the Sports, Physical Education, Fitness and Laser Skills Council. Under this, 10,000 working women and ITI girl students are being given training for self-defense.

• MSDE in close collaboration with UNWomen conducted a 16 Day module Gender Sensitization POSH Workshop

5. Promoting Apprenticeship Training: One of the most sustainable formats of skill development

• MSDE took comprehensive simplification reforms with respect to procedures and processes to create ease of doing business with regard to apprenticeship
• Pilot DBT underway since July 2022. More than 1.08 lakh DBT transactions worth INR 15.6 Crore till date. Pan India DBT roll out from next year.
• Major apprenticeship reforms were done in BTP, NAPS Guidelines, optional trade course rationalization, Examination, and portal procedures. Seven Office Memorandums issued regarding the same.

6. Promoting Entrepreneurship

• 12.88 lakhs participants trained through 48,700 programmes comprising Trainers Training Programme and programmes on areas of stimulation, support, and sustenance of entrepreneurship development, including 5134 international candidates from 145 countries.

• 5 livelihood business incubation centres offering training and incubation support to trainees in the areas of Fashion Designing, Beauty & Wellness, Mobile Repair, Food Processing, and Electrical and Home Appliances.

• 991 new enterprises created, and 1071 existing enterprises scaled up through Pradhan Mantri Yuva Yojana (PM-YUVA).

• Pilot project on Entrepreneurship Development in Holy Cities comprising Varanasi, Haridwar, and Pandharpur to catalyse the entrepreneurial activities of the temple town through resumption of existing livelihood activities and by supporting existing enterprise to scale up and to tap the potential entrepreneurs, mentoring them to identify, set up enterprises and management of the enterprises.

• Online e-mentoring platform “UdyamDisha”, developed to handhold and guide aspiring and existing entrepreneurs and facilitate online mentoring services.

• YouTube Channel “PM-Udyami Talks” was launched to create awareness about entrepreneurship and showcase the entrepreneurial journey of beneficiaries under various programmes run by NIESBUD.

• Project on Digital Marketing & Women Entrepreneurship Development launched for Women Self Help Groups (WSHGs) covering 2020 women in 10 aspirational districts of Odisha to enable them to access the market through e-commerce platforms.

• NIESBUD is accredited as a National Resource Organization (NRO) by the Ministry of Rural Development for the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) of MoRD to support the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) for the effective implementation of the scheme.

• Project was undertaken in Jails of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh for creating, fostering, and promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship among the Jail inmates through capacity building, mentoring, and handholding support.

• Trainer’s training programme for trainers/instructors of government and private ITIs under the sponsorship of the Directorate General of Trainings (DGT).

• Entrepreneurship development programme and entrepreneurship cum skill development programme for retired/ retiring Armed Forces personnel to enhance their qualifications/skills to enable them to start their enterprises and seek suitable employment after their retirement.

• National Level content development on Entrepreneurship education to bring in uniformity and standardization in Entrepreneurship Development Education and serve the training requirements of first-generation entrepreneurs including learners of ITIs, Polytechnics, JSS, unemployed youth and community women.

• Organizing workshops for capacity building and extending mentoring and handholding for scaling up business activities to the artisans during the Exhibitions, Melas and Haats.

• Training programmes for promoting entrepreneurship among different target groups comprising migrants, tribal, women, marginalized populations covering SC, ST, OBC, Transgenders, and rag pickers are being organized to provide livelihood opportunities.

• NIESBUD has established 21 extension centres at NSTIs to increase its footprint across the country.

7. Empowering Rural India through Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS)

• The Scheme of Jan Shikshan Sansthan (Central Sector Scheme) provides vocational skills/training to non-literate, neo-literates, person with rudimentary level of education, school dropouts up to 12th standard in the age group of 15-45 years through NGOs at the doorsteps of the beneficiary in the rural/urban/remote unreached areas.
   
• Following is the number of beneficiaries that have been trained under the JSS scheme (as on 19th December 2022) which includes 85% women beneficiaries.

Data for reference:

8. National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF):

• 125 National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) aligned courses across 21 sectors have been introduced. The framework has been aligned with dynamic industry needs wherein NSQF alignment and approval parameters, processes, templates, and procedures have been greatly simplified, standardized, and revised to cater to the needs of industry requirements, including schools, and unorganized sectors in the skill hubs

9.  International cooperation and training:

• International Skill Engagements - Signed G2G and B2B MoUs/Agreements with more than 11 countries namely Australia, Belarus, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Qatar, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK), in the field of skill development and vocational education and training focusing on the international workforce mobility, adoption of global best practices for Indian TVET, harmonization of skill eco system, knowledge sharing with emerging TVET system and capacity building.

• Empanelment of Skill India International Centre (SIIC), which plays a pivotal role in servicing overseas demand through the facilitation of sourcing, counselling, training, assessment, certification, recruitment, and immigration of candidates. Two centers have been set up so far – one in Bhubneswar and another in Varanasi

• NSDCI has recently conducted study to assess manpower demand in 16 destination countries (2022-2027). On the basis of analysis, it has been reported that employability and high-quality skilled workforce will be the key challenge in the coming years, thereby, mapping of the opportunities for the Indian workforce is needed. United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Germany are the top countries demand for the most skilled workforce in the future.
• India secured 11th position in the WorldSkills Competition 2022 (WSC 2022) as compared to the 13th positioning 2019, winning 2 Silver Medals, 3 Bronze Medals, and 13 Medallions of Excellence. This win suggests the surge in awareness among youth, trainers, and other key stakeholders in the skill ecosystem about participating in the competition which inspires young people to develop a passion for skills and pursuing excellence, through competitions.
• It was a standout performance by our female competitors by winning a Silver Medal in Patisserie and Confectionary skill, 1 Bronze Medal in Hotel Reception skill and 2 Medallions for Excellence in Hairdressing and Health & Social Care skill. Among the winners, Nandita Saxena won a silver medal in patisserie and confectionery trade and Anushree Srinivasan bagged a bronze medal in hotel reception skill. ITI qualified competitors also showcased a remarkable performance by winning 2 bronze medals, one each in Prototype modelling and Mechatronics skill apart from winning 2 Medallions for Excellence in Autobody repair and Automobile technology skill. India continued its dominance in Water Technology skill by winning a Silver medal.

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