Boost For Entrepreneurship: India’s 1st Integrated Policy for Skill Development Program Gets Cabinet Approval
Cabinet has given nod to India’s first National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, which aims to streamline 70+ skill development programs currently being run, across 21 ministries. This new policy will help to train more people at a swifter pace, and streamline the duration of these trainings.
With emphasis on women, this new policy will encourage and empower innovation based entrepreneurship, and help create more jobs in the shortest possible time.
Framework of guidelines and scope for a National Skill Development Mission has also been formulated. This is line with the promise made by Govt. while announcing Union Budget last year regarding creation of a skill development mission.
A statement released from the Government said that the vision of this new Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is to “to create an ecosystem of empowerment by skilling on a large scale at speed with high standards and to promote a culture of innovation-based entrepreneurship, which can generate wealth and employment so as to ensure sustainable livelihoods for all citizens in the country”
This new program will completely replace the previous National Skilling Policy, 2009, which was formulated by the Congress Govt., and had a provision to revise after 5 years. The progress so far, under National Skilling Policy, 2009 has been dismal to say the least. Out of the total workforce in India, only 4.59% have undergone any sort of skill development and entrepreneurship training. Comparably, 68% in UK, 75% in Germany & 96% in South Korea have taken various trainings.
As per various estimates, 104 million fresh entrants into workforce & 298 million existing workers will be requiring skill training by the end of 2022.
New Hierarchy of Skill Development: PM To Take Charge
For the first time in it’s history, PM will directly take charge of this mission, and spearhead the campaign.
The National Skill Development Mission, which will be the governing body of this massive program, will have a three layered decision making hierarchy.
- The Governing Council will be at the top, headed by the PM who will provide policy vision.
- Minister in Charge of the particular skill development will at be #2 position, ensuring that the skill development programs are being run as per the governing council.
- The implementation part would be managed by the mission directorate, with secretary-skill development as mission director.
Course Duration Streamlined
Currently, the duration of various skill development programs range from 80 to 675 hours, with no uniform guidelines for application and structure.
With this new policy, Government proposes to streamline this process, and impose a minimum 200 hours training requirement to master a new skill; and 80 hours training to re-skilling programs.
Boost For Entrepreneurship
Government recognizes the fact there are various challenges for a new entrepreneur, and via this national, integrated skill development program, they wish to bridge this gap.
Some of the objectives of this new mission are:
- Aligning supply with demand
- Provide advanced skills to empower human resource
- Promote industry engagement
- Create a quality assurance framework for every skill
- Leveraging technology
- Promote entrepreneurship and self-employment
It is expected that this new structure will directly co-ordinate with the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, which was specially created last year to create more entrepreneurs and more jobs.
