The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, at the instance of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, has issued a Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs ) on 8th September 2020 to ensure resumption of training activities post Covid-19 lockdown in skill and entrepreneurship training institutes including Industrial Technical Institutes (ITIs) and Short Term Training Centres under National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) or State Skill Development Missions or other Central or State Ministries /Departments, National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD), Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE) and  their training partners. The SOP outlines various generic precautionary measures to be adopted in addition to specific measures to be taken at these Institutes to prevent spread of Covid-19.

COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated change in workplace dynamics that was already happening due to automation and artificial intelligence and changing workplace roles. The need has now emerged for skilling/reskilling/upskilling in all sector including health sector  where courses  are developed in areas like telemedicine, sanitization etc.

The Ministry through its online portal BharatSkills which provides courseware for 29 popular courses, e-learning video content for 71 courses and Question Bank for all the 137 trades under Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS) for ITIs including other  National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) aligned courses, has conducted online training programme during lockdown benefitting 9,38,851 trainees. Further, another 1, 31,241 trainees have availed online training facilities through BharatSkill Mobile App. Similarly, National Instructional Media Institute (NIMI), an autonomous body under the Ministry,  has conducted 3080 online classes benefitting 16,55,953  trainees.  Besides, the Industrial partners of the Directorate General of Training (DGT) under the Ministry viz; Quest Alliance, IBM, Nasscom-Microsoft and CISCO have conducted online training having 1,84,296 participants. In addition to the above, 16,767 exclusive online classes for 35 CTS trades and 34 Craft Instructors Training Scheme (CITS) running across 33 National Skill Training Institutes have been conducted.  In short term training, a very large number of trainees under NSDC Skilling ecosystem have utilised the services of  its eSkill India -an  eLearning portal,  which  leverages technology in continuing the skilling momentum and enables skill seekers accelerate their learning through methods like virtual learning and remote classroom.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri R.K. Singh in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

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YKB/SK