New Delhi : The government plans to set up an independent regulator for skills training in the country, a move that comes after the skill development and entrepreneurship ministry failed in its efforts to improve the quality of skills imparted by various bodies and institutions.
A senior government official told ET that the proposed regulator will be set up at an arm’s length from the ministry through an executive order. “Discussions are at an advanced stage and the ministry will issue an order in a month,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The skill development and entrepreneurship ministry will act as the administrative ministry for the regulator.
“Following the executive order for setting up a regulator, the ministry will enact a law giving more teeth to the regulator to standardize the quality of skills training in India,” the official said.
The official said that although the government is pumping huge money into Skill India programme, the success of the programme is dependent to a great extent on private players since the government does not have the wherewithal to undertake skilling of 40 crore youth in the given time.
“Skilling involves lot of public funding but the output is largely private player-oriented and hence it is difficult without an independent regulator,” the official said.
Skills training in India is governed by different bodies and regulations such as the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT), set up in 1956, the Apprenticeship Act, 1961 and the National Skills Development Authority (NSDA), set up in 2013.
However, all three have failed to completely regulate the skilling ecosystem. While NCVT has been largely focused on industrial training institutes, or ITIs, which never took off in a big way because of insufficient infrastructure, the Apprenticeship Act is too stringent and has kept stakeholders away.
The NSDA, though relatively new, is taking longer than expected to adapt to changing demand for skilled professionals, and hence the need for an independent regulator, the official said.
At the launch of the Skill India programme in 2015, the government had targeted training more than 400 million people in different skills by 2022. However, barely 40 million have been trained since then, 25 million people of them by the skill development and entrepreneurship ministry.
Around 12 million youth enter the country’s workforce every year but a large chunk of them are unemployable because of poor skill sets. Hence the government’s renewed focus on improving skills training.
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