A little over a year ago, Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development, launched the National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF) in order to empower India’s growing young population with skill-based education. The scheme is sector specific, catering to IT, Media, Entertainment, Telecommunications, Mobile Communications, Automobile, Construction, Retail, Food Processing, Tourism, Hotels, Jewellery Design and Fashion Design and many other industries.
Under the NVEQF scheme, Indian students can choose to do industry-specific certificate-level vocational skill-based programmes in a modular manner; then move on to general learning leading to a diploma; and later to a more systematic university education. The scheme is elaborate and attempts to prepare Indian youths for the job market where there’s an acute scarcity of skilled manpower. It is expected that 5 million students will enrol in these vocational programmes every year.
However, it has not been smooth sailing for the NVEQF, with the Labour Ministry and the HRD Ministry not agreeing to the ‘formulation’ and implementation of the scheme. Finally, the Prime Minister’s Office had to intervene. A Hindustan Times article recently reported that the two ministries have now reached an agreement and the NVEQF roll-out is imminent… with help from the private sector. The article informs us that
The government has realised that the qualifications framework will not work without active participation of the private sector in course determination and skill certification.
The sector skill councils have private participation but the new framework aims to give them a bigger role in running of over 2,000 vocational education and training courses.
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