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Press Release

Govt to come up with Digital University frameworks to facilitate workforce: Dharmendra Pradhan

Sep 27, 2022

  • Collective effort of policy makers, academia and industry imperative to promote skill and education
  • India fundamentally strong, potential in captive markets along with demographic dividend
  • FICCI knowledge report 'Reimagining Vocational Education in India' & 'Skill Reforms: Study of Regulations, Compliances & the Skilling Ecosystem' released 

NEW DELHI, 27 September 2022: Mr Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Education, Govt of India today stated that the government is in the process of setting up Digital University in India to promote education and skill development. "NEP 2020 envisions skill and education as one. We are coming up with Digital University with multiple entry and exit frameworks along with academic bank of credit to facilitate our workforce. The industry needs to adopt these policy reforms and flexible frameworks," he added.

Addressing the '13th Global Skills Summit - Education to Employability: Making it happen', organized by FICCI, Mr Pradhan called for building a stronger connect amongst academia, industry and policymaker along with a collective approach to drive effective transformation in the education and skills sector. "India is blessed with a demographic dividend. Education and skills have to play an important role in converting our demographic dividend into a transformative powerhouse," he added.

Highlighting the advantages of India in the next 25 years, Mr Pradhan said that there is no other nation in the world that has such huge captive, aspirational and high purchasing capacity. India's domestic fundamentals are very strong and despite COVID, Indian economy maintained 7-8 per cent growth rate and is moving towards double digit growth," he asserted.

There is a need for leveraging skills to boost employability, reap demographic dividend and make our skills ecosystem more vibrant. "For India to be more productive and robust, we must make our workforce more educated & skilled. The simplification of labour codes and apprenticeship act has added more vibrancy to our workforce. We are bringing in more reforms to make our workforce more productive," emphasized Mr Pradhan.

Mr Subhrakant Panda, Senior Vice President, FICCI and MD, Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys Ltd said that in a rapidly changing world, which is more driven than ever before, static knowledge cannot be the norm. "FICCI is keen to play a positive role through PPP mode in the transition from education to workplaces. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of independence, India will be transformed into a high-income developed nation and to make it happen, it is essential to engage the demographic dividend," he added.

Mr Manish Sabharwal, Chair, FICCI Skill Development Committee and Vice Chairman & Co-Founder, Teamlease Services Ltd said that there are few design principles in skilling that India has learnt in last few years which include learning by learning; learning by doing; learning with qualification and learning with multi-modal delivery.

Mr TV Mohandas Pai, Honorary Advisor, FICCI Skills Development Committee & Chairman, Manipal Global Education said that it is time that we look at introducing skills policy for each state separately and within each state, we look at districts. We need to intertwine industrial policy with skills policy. He also urged the government for establishing a job incentive program in the next Budget.

Earlier during the day, Mr Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt of India while speaking on the theme 'Skilling in Schooling and Schooling in Skilling', said that it is inevitable that we will find some sea changes in the way education and skilling are delivered in the country. He further stated that under the PMKVY 4.0 program, the reach of the Skill Hub initiative will be further enhanced using the government infrastructure at various institutions to enable short term and long-term skilling programs. "Under the skilling program, we are relooking at all the job roles that are being offered currently, putting employability skill as a compulsory part to it and aligning it to the credit framework," he added.

Mr Sanjay Shivnani, Co-Chair, FICCI Skills Development Committee & Head Technical Training and Hindalco Technical University, Hindalco Industries Ltd, Aditya Birla Group also shared his perspective on the potential of skilling and education in India.

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