Skill development the mission
The UPA government is all set to make skilled manpower development a core goal. It is likely to establish a Skill Development Mission, much like the Rajiv Gandhi’s Technology Mission or Manmohan Singh’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to meet the growing s...
By Urmi A Goswami & Hema Ramakrishnan, TNN |
NEW DELHI: The UPA government is all set to make skilled manpower development a core goal. It is likely to establish a Skill Development Mission, much like the Rajiv Gandhi’s Technology Mission or Manmohan Singh’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to meet the growing shortage of trained manpower, especially in the IT sector.
The Skill Development Mission will do more than just look at the IT sector’s requirement, it will aim at resurrecting the vocational education and training system in the country. This is in sync with the Sam Pitroda-led National Knowledge Commission’s suggestion to set up a National Institute of Vocational Education Planning & Development to formulate strategy, advise government and undertake R&D in areas pertaining to technology and workforce development.
The government would also like the private sector to shoulder a part of the burden of the cost of skill development. This could mean extending the full income-tax deduction on payments made to institutions for vocational education & training and engineering by the private sector.
At present, the exemption is available to institutions set up in rural areas and small towns with population of five lakh or less. The proposal is to extend the benefit to institutions set up in urban areas as well. It is likely that the Skill Development Mission and its precursor, the Skill Development Taskforce, will determine the target skill areas.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is understood to have received a feedback from the IT sector on the projected manpower requirement in three to five years. Projections show the country will need 230 lakh professionals to meet IT industry’s $60-billion export revenue target by 2010.
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However, given the current capacity of higher education, the system will be able to produce only 7,00,000 qualified professionals. Some steps to address the quality issue have been taken at the behest of the prime minister — a committee in the HRD ministry has suggested setting up of finishing schools at the National Institutes for Technology and the Indian Institutes of Technology for engineering graduates from schools with fewer resources.Download
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