As it tries to give an impetus to vocational training in the country, the government is considering a plan to set up an university for skill development.
“The Prime Minister has underlined the need for a university for skill development that would run parallel to the current skill development institutes,” said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, minister of state (independent charge) for skill development and entrepreneurship on Saturday at a FICCI conference.
Criticising the industrial training institutes, Rudy further said that such an university would help impart skills while providing people with a degree that is considered “respectable” like other university degrees of Bachelors and Masters. “ITIs really do not work out, unless wherever the corporate sector has taken them over,” he stressed.
However, the skill development university is still in the offing and would take some more time to be set up. “We are trying to work out how to go about it…as we have the ministry of human resources development as well,” Rudy said.
Indicating that a new national skilling policy would soon be announced, he further said that the ministry is also looking at reviewing the 500 million people target for skilling by 2022. The new policy is expected to be in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a “Skilled India” that would also provide trained manpower to schemes such as Make in India. Underlining the challenges before the newly set-up ministry, Rudy said there is a lack of trainers as well as requisite infrastructure in the country to provide skill training