by NR INDRAN / INT

Mumbai : NIIT, a leading Global Talent Development Corporation and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) today entered into a significant public-private partnership to enhance skills and employability for youth across India. Through this partnership it is estimated that around 70 lakh youth will be trained by 2022, in multi-skilling mode. The emphasis will be to offer job oriented training in semi-urban and rural areas, to applicants mainly from low and middle income households, aspiring to build successful careers through quality training taken alongwith formal education. These skilled youth will initially fulfill the requirements of nine emerging verticals predominantly in the service sector.

The Agreement for this partnership was signed by Mr. Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT Limited and Mr. Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO, NSDC, today.

Under the Agreement, NSDC will participate in NIIT Yuva Jyoti Limited (NYJL), a subsidiary company of NIIT, via a mix of loans and equity. The total project outlay required for this ambitious project is                 Rs. 377 Crores over the first four years, making this one of the largest commitments of its kind to be undertaken till date.

As per a study conducted by IMaCS (the management consulting arm of rating agency ICRA) on behalf of NSDC, India is likely to have an incremental requirement of 24.4 crore skilled people by 2022 in 21 high growth sectors.  However, although India is witnessing very good economic growth, the challenge of addressing the ever-increasing ‘available’ but ‘unemployable’ urban and rural workforce continues to be daunting.

NSDC is a not-for-profit company set up by the Ministry of Finance as the first PPP initiative with the mandate to skill up 15 crore people by 2022 in 21 focus sectors. This is part of the overall target of Government of India to train 50 crore people by 2022 to meet the global skills shortage.

NYJL aims to setup over 1500 state-of-the-art NIIT Yuva Jyoti Centres, across 1000 cities.  The aim is to provide industry and job specific training to around 70 lakh young Indians by 2022, thus helping create a pool of job-ready work-force for the service industry. Further, a ‘Skills Inventory’ of around 2.6 crore youth will be created by 2022 through this initiative.

Speaking on this significant partnership Mr. Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT Limited said, “This partnership will give us an opportunity to reach out to a vast audience whose need for skill development has largely remained unaddressed, thus furthering our objective to develop talent and create employable workforce across the globe. We look forward to working with NSDC as their partner in this vital initiative.”

Mr. Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO, NSDC remarked, “We are delighted to partner with NIIT, the leading player in the talent development space, to offer employable skills to around 70 lakh youth across India. NIIT’s experience in offering industry-linked training in multiple verticals in the Service sector further strengthens the execution of our vision to skill India’s youth from semi-urban and rural areas for the global needs.”

In the initial phase, the training will be imparted across 9 service sectors – Retail, IT/ITeS, BFSI, Education & Training Services, Media & Entertainment, Healthcare, Telecom, Hospitality and the Informal sector. The training programs will leverage technology for achieving scale with consistency of outcome and high quality. Built on a strong foundation of the NIIT pedagogy, state-of-the-art industry endorsed curriculum will be used to transfer skills to students. Further, internship will be facilitated for students to apply the skills learnt to real life situations and thus develop a deeper understanding of industry requirements.

Each centre will be localized to suit the local community flavour and will be customized for the requirements of the industry sector being addressed. Students will have multiple entry and exit points for each course.  Once the basic skills in a particular sector have been mastered by the students, they will be able to pave a path for a career by pursuing advanced courses and specializations.

NYJL will assess the existing skill sets and aspirations of the participants and accordingly help them choose the right program. Besides partnering in the joint venture, NSDC will also play a significant advisory role and provide support in facilitating tie-ups with Sector Skill Councils, Microfinance Institutions & banks, in creating market awareness and in obtaining industry endorsements for the programs offered.

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