by NR INDRAN / INT
Mumbai : NIIT Foundation (NF), set up to provide world-class education 
and training to the under-served communities, has received the coveted UK India Skill Forum (UKISF) Award 2011 in the Best Skills Provider (Private Sector) category. This prestigious award was presented to NIIT Foundation by Mr. S Ramadorai, Adviser, PM’s National Skill Development Council at a ceremony attended by leading industrialists and bureaucrats, at the FICCI Federation House in New Delhi.
Instituted by UK India Business Council (UKIBC) and FICCI last year, the UK India Skill Forum (UKISF) Awards acknowledge excellence in the area of skills development and are presented to Indian companies to recognise their commitment and achievements in the vocational training space.
Set up in the year 2005 by the founders of NIIT, NIIT Foundation (NF) focuses on sustainability and strong management and technical expertise in the area of skill development and gainful employment for the underserved youth. NF has a mandate to reach the unreached, uncared and unattended to ensure inclusive development in the country.
On receiving this prestigious award, Mr. Neeraj Agarwal, Project Director, NIIT Foundation remarked, “On behalf of NIIT Foundation I would like to thank UKIBC and FICCI for presenting us with this award. This recognition will further encourage us to continue offering vocational training to the ever-increasing ‘available’ but ‘unemployable’ urban and rural workforce in India, and thus help create a pool of industry ready professionals in the country.”
NIIT Foundation received the award in the Best Private Sector Skills Provider (Graduates/School Drop Outs/Rural Communities) category, for its initiatives in areas of skill development and providing gainful employment for the underserved youth of the country. The Foundation has been imparting employability courses through 75 centres across 10 states, and has reached out to more than 24,000 youth in the last 3 years, 80% of whom have been successfully placed.
Over 43% of students trained by the Foundation are girls. It has partnered with 52 civil service organizations and 250+ corporates to enable successful training and placement of students. Over 2312 students have been successfully placed over the last two years.
The training programs offered by NIIT Foundation focus on sustainability, building strong management capacity and technical expertise with a clear understanding of the needs of the impact group- the underserved youth of India.
The UKISF Awards are one of the first initiatives to strengthen the UK and India cooperation in the areas of training and education. An initiative of the UKIBC, this is a first step towards realising
Hon. Prime Minister of UK, David Cameron’s vision for UK – India partnership.
The awards this year were given in 4 categories: Best Government Funded / Supported ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ Skill Provider, Best Private Sector ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ Skill Provider, Best Private Sector Skills Provider (Graduates/School Drop Outs/Rural Communities), Best UK India Partnership for Skills Development.
The UKISF is led by the UK India Business Council in London and supported by UKTI in India. The forum is an eighteen month young forum that has seen significant collaboration between India and the UK in the area of vocational skills provision comprising of over 120 UK Skills provider organisations. In the last few months the UKISF has generated a number of bilateral contacts and has shown immense progress.
One of the key strengths of the UK India Skills Forum is its ability to mobilize expertise from the whole of the UK, across the entirety of the technical and vocational education and training sector. It incorporates skills providers as well as assessment bodies, equipment suppliers, infrastructure developers and experts in a wide range of delivery models. In this way it can act as a “one stop shop” for Indian organizations seeking to address their particular training requirements.
NIIT Foundation (NF), was set up in 2005 by the founders of NIIT, with the key objective of providing world-class education and training for the under-served communities. NF has a mandate to reach the unreached, uncared and unattended to ensure inclusive development in India.
NIIT Foundation’s vision is to be global-path-breakers in employability training, gainfully employing at least 2 million under-served youth annually.
To shape the mandate, NF has commenced a number of programs that would positively impact the underprivileged of the country through various educational interventions. The intent of NF is to better understand the education and employability issues at the grassroots level and build sustainable training intervention models. NF makes critical interventions towards upgrading the skill base and employability of marginalized youth – in urban slums and rural areas.
You can contact author @ nr_indran@rediffmail.com
