6 Nov : The National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) is a non statutory body constituted by Government of India, Ministry of Labour & Employment. As an Apex Advisory Body, the Council advises the Central Government on all policy matters pertaining to the implementation of vocational training programmes in the country. The last meeting of full council was held on 23rd October 2008 under the Chairmanship of the Minister for Labour and Employment Shri Oscar Fernandes. The Council was last constituted on 26th October, 2007 for a period of three years.
Nine meetings of “Sub-Committee of NCVT dealing with affiliation” were held during last one year (from October’07 to October’08). In the above meetings 2187 Standing Committee Inspection reports were examined. 5833 units were affiliated, 614 new ITIs were opened and seating capacity was increased from 7,49,510 to 8,29,377.
Year 2007-08 has been a watershed in the history of skill development in the country. Lots of new initiatives have been taken by the government to develop skills, which will have far-reaching consequences. Government of India utilized a fund of Rs. 1100 crore in 2007-08 against Rs. 10 crore in the previous year. The increase in utilization of budget was about 11 times over the last year.
Government has embarked on the strategic objective of modernizing the ITIs and improving the quality of training in Government run ITIs, with involvement of stakeholders. Action has been initiated for upgrdation of 100 ITIs from domestic resources and 400 ITIs through World Bank assistance so as to create “Centres of Excellence” for producing multi-skilled workforce of world standard. The highlights of the schemes are introduction of multi-skill courses during the first year, followed by advanced and specialized modular courses in the second year by adopting industry wise cluster approach, multi entry and multi exist provisions and Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the form of Institute Management Committee (IMC) to ensure greater and more active involvement of industry in all aspects of training.
In budget speech 2007-08, the Finance Minister had announced that the remaining 1396 ITIs would be upgraded into Centers of Excellence in specific trades and skill under public-private partnership. Under the proposed scheme, the State Government as the owner of the ITI will continue to regulate admissions and fees except in case of 20 %, which will be determined by institute Management Committees. The new management has been given academic and financial autonomy and the Central Government is providing an interest free loan of up to Rs. 2.5 crore per ITI. It is proposed to upgrade 300 ITIs every year under Public-Private Partnership mode.
Along with these two major Schemes for upgradation of the ITIs, another Scheme called “Skill Development Initiative” has been launched to train one million persons in the next five years and then one million every year. Under this Scheme, training is provided in demand-driven short term courses which are based on Modular Employable Skills. The most important aspect of this scheme is that the training cost for the successful candidates is borne by the Central Government. It is expected that this Scheme meets the ever-increasing skill needs of the Industry. Till date, curricula of 340 modules covering 32 sectors have been developed, more than 60,000 persons have been trained/tested and 2154 Vocational Training Providers have been registered.
A separate scheme for setting up of new ITIs and upgradation of the existing ITIs in North Eastern Regional and Jammu & Kashmir is also being implemented at a cost of Rs. 150.7 crore. When completed, the seating capacity will be doubled in these regions.
The Ministry of Labour has also initiated action for opening 1500 new ITIs in the blocks having no ITIs, as yet to ensure that skill development is inclusive in terms of gender, social divide (SC/ST/OBC, minorities and others), the location (rural-urban), economic divide, difficult regions like border areas and Naxal affected areas etc. Two different strategies have been proposed for this purpose. The first is of opening of ITIs in PPP mode with predefined roles of different stakeholders i.e. private partner, State government and Central government in which Private partner plays the leading role. Alternatively, for the difficult areas where private partnership may not be feasible, the State Governments may play leading role with financial assistance from the Union Government. The Private partnership may be advisory in nature for its governance such as setting up of Institute Management Committees.