New Delhi:
World Bank has released an important report Jobs at Your Door Step on Skill Based Education System. What does this mean for India? How important is this for the Government of India and how can skill-based training be promoted for children in the school system in the country? Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan spoke to NDTV.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told NDTV that the Honorable Prime Minister thinks far ahead. He developed a continuous reformist governance model for the last 10 years to bring a momentum within the country. Keeping in mind what will be our requirements, what will be our global profile by 2047 when we celebrate the centenary of independence, a paradigm shift has been made in the National Education Policy 2020. Vocational education skill base education till now was for those students who drop out, a similar concept was created for those students who reach ITI or Polytechnic after 10th. Secondly, if it is in school education then it is an elective subject, an optional subject. If you want to take it then you can take it, it will also be fine if you don’t want to take it. But a fundamental change was made in NEP 2020. From class six, students will be trained about a skill spirit. This will bring his aptitude and interest into focus. In class 9, 10, he can subjectivize a lot of skill sets in six areas as per his interest and in class 11, 12, he will move towards a more specific focus specialization. Then according to that, if he wants to go for higher studies, he wants to go towards research, then he can go. But the education he gets about this skill at the primary stage is going to help him for life long.
Pradhan said that some of our project work is going on with the World Bank. The World Bank has taken a sample of some selected districts in six states and given indication about a pan Indian requirement, which is our requirement and also a recommendation of NEP. And in our roadmap which is going to be made in the coming 25 years, in the Amrit Kaal, the Prime Minister has an ambition to make India the skill hub of the world. India will become the growth engine of the world. India is going to become a led economic model. At that time, this type of report will definitely help in bringing about a new thought process, re-appropriating old ideas and taking a new approach.
It has been said in the report that Industries MSME have potential. To create jobs, a new eco system can be created for the school graduates and if you start training them from the school itself. So in such a situation the question will be how will you expand it further. Right now they have studied six districts, this is a process going on. How will it expand across the country?
On this question, Dharmendra Pradhan said that we started this work from 2014. We have reformed the Apprenticeship Act. We have created a new skill development ministry. We have created a robot data bank like e-shram portal. We have created a robot education ID like Apar ID. In the recommendations of NEP, we have made an architecture of credit framework, credit architecture from class one to life long. The Prime Minister himself has led a topic. Degrees and certificates are important but qualification is more important. India has shifted its education, its learning process from text books to subjects to competency. There is a big shift, a fundamental change. This reform is happening with the new emerging requirements of the world. Earlier we did not give people the knowledge of semiconductor in school. That kind of orientation about green energy was not there in our school. We had no idea about our multimodal global mobility network. All these subjects are going to add a new world to the skilling ecosystem in today’s education system. This is also a necessity.
He said that in this time’s budget we have taken the responsibility of one crore internships. Government will take lead for internship by involving corporate. All this is part of skilling reskilling up skilling. It is part of creating man power of global standard. In our country, the Ministry of Commerce is making trade agreements with many countries. Today, there is a requirement for India’s skilled war force in all countries. Our mobility is increasing in the world, our remittance economy is increasing. Our best practice and all global standards are coming back to our country. We have built this type of architecture with great clarity in the last ten years.
