Skilling Punjab imperative to survive in global competition
Author(s): City Air NewsDignitaries taking part in interactive session on 'Skilling India'. Punjab focuses on bridging skill gap Chandigarh, July17, 2015: The Punjab Government is all set to give a big push to Skill Punjab to meet the...
cityairnews
Jul 17, 2015 12:30
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Dignitaries taking part in interactive session on 'Skilling India'.
Punjab focuses on bridging skill gap
Chandigarh, July17, 2015: The Punjab Government is all set to give a big push to Skill Punjab to meet the human resource requirement of upcoming industry and to ensure that industry in state was fully prepared to meet the cut throat global competition.
Speaking during the session on “Skilling India for Global Competitiveness: Plugging the Skill Gap” organized by PHD chamber of Commerce and Industry, here today at PHD House Secretary, Industrial Training & Technical Education, Punjab R. K. Verma said that it was imperative for the stateto focus on skills and training for productivity and competitive edge.
Sharing that the key challenges to the Skill Development being the strengthening State Skill Development Missions; Private sector participation in skill development, Expanding Outreach of skilling programmes, Availability of trainers/instructors/assessors, making skill inspirational, career guidance and post training placement tracking, adopting best practices, Mr. Verma underlined the need for aligning skill training with demand dynamics, effective counselling and guidance besides the able delivery of the training programme.
“India has a huge advantage of its demographic dividend with 65% of its population under the age of 35 years. However, the manner in which it will use the opportunity will determine whether it will reap its demographic dividend. India must, he said, stress and invest in education and training so that it is able to achieve its target of double digit inclusive growth”, said Vikram Sahgal, Chairman, Chandigarh Committee, PHD Chamber.
About 63% of the school students drop out at different stages before reaching Class-X. Only about 2.5 million vocational training seats are available in the country whereas about 12.8 million persons enter the labour market every year. Even out of these training places, very few are available for early school dropouts. Thus, a large number of school drop outs do not have access to skill development for improving their employability, added Sahgal.
Anil Kumar, IAS, Principal Secretary, Industrial Training, Haryana while echoing the concerns raised by Rakesh Verma, said, “There is an urgent need to have close interaction between the skill requirements of the industry and the available training and employment avenues besides keeping in mind the global challenge of competitiveness.”
Kumar stressed that practical industrial training should be imparted at the industry floor itself since the technology is changing so fast and getting obsolete too sooner than not, rather than having massive outdated technological infrastructure at ITIs, ITIs should be imparting only the basics.
Vivek Atray, IAS, Deputy Commissioner, Panchkula highlighted that our system is not quick enough to react to the needs of the environment. The world is dynamic ever changing and changing fast but our course curricula remain static, fixed. This gap, he said is very important to plug.
Date:
Friday, July 17, 2015
