Naidu urges NGOs to back govt push on youth skill development

Hyderabad: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today asked Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to join hands with the government to undertake skill development programmes for youth, to bridge the gap between human resources and talent enhancement. Speaking at a function organised by Swarna Bharat Trust, Hyderabad chapter here, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting also said India aims to skill 402 million people by 2022. Of these, at least 110 million workers are required in over 25 select sectors such as textiles, automobiles, construction, banking and retail.

"If China is recognised as the 'manufacturing factory' of the world, India can become the human resource capital. Education and Healthcare are the two challenges before the nation. Government cannot do all this alone. It needs the support of NGOs," Venkaiah Naidu said. According to him, every year more than 13 million Indians enter the working age and the country has an annual training capacity of 3 million on adding up all the training and educational capacities in ITIs, polytechnics, graduate colleges and professional colleges among others.

"It takes 1-4 years to create an educated/ skilled Indian. Therefore even if a rapid capacity building spree is undertaken, this gap of more than 10 million is very difficult to bridge as the long gestation periods for training make the pace of skilling slower than the pace at which new Indians are entering the working age," he said. He maintained that in order to tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion and unemployment the Narendra Modi-led government is pro actively doing many things and one such program is Skill Development. The Minister along with Arvind Panagariya Vice-Chairman of the Niti Aayoog inaugurated a mega medical camp and distributed Skill Development course completion certificates to trainees of Swarna Bharat Trust.

Naidu said most countries around the world have implemented the apprenticeship model – Japan has over 10 million apprentices, Germany has 3 million apprentices and USA has 0.5 million apprentices, while India has only 0.3 million apprentices. "This number of apprentices is relatively low considering the huge population and demography of India with more than 300 million people in the age group of 18-35 years," he said. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKK) have already been promoted in more than 60 districts. Now these will be extended to more than 600 districts across the country, he further said.