The UK India Skills Forum (UKISF), formed by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC), will be joining hands with Centum Learning Ltd, a Bharti Associate company and National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) in enabling the Indian joint venture to train 12 million individuals over a 10-year period, in 383 districts of India.
Earlier this year, Centum and NSDC had formed its own joint venture to undertake this massive exercise in empowering the youth in India by imparting industry-specific “blue collor” and “white collor” skills in India.
The participation of UKIBC will provide the Indian joint venture instructors drawn from nearly 120 leading companies in the UK, who from time to time will visit India to train the youth in specific industry skills.
The joint venture between UKISF and the Indian joint venture will be signed today in the presence of UK Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts.
In a media statement issued here today, Willetts said, “The signing of this MoU is a significant step towards creating the highly skilled workforce that India requires to match its fast economic growth. In order for India to meet its ambition for 500 million trained people across the country, it’s important that partnerships are formed to ensure that training and skills are delivered in the most effective and informed way.”
Currently, only 5 per cent of Indians aged 19-24 formally learn a trade. It is estimated that the project will require 3,500 skills instructors, with 200,000 to be trained in six sectors.
UKIBC CEO Richard Heald said, “The UKISF is a one-stop shop for UK skills providers. It has pioneered a consortia-based approach to the Indian market. In this way, we are able to mobilise an entity which can meet the requirements of large-scale skills projects which are necessary if India is to achieve its goal of training 500 million people by 2020.”
