Vocational skill certification mechanism to roll out soon

After many squabbles and turf wars, the government has finally decided to have a national qualification framework for skill certification of those seeking jobs in 32 sectors, including automobile and retail. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 1, 2013, 02:13:04 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After many squabbles and turf wars, the government has finally decided to have a national qualification framework for skill certification of those seeking jobs in 32 sectors, including automobile and retail.

An inter-ministerial committee constituted by cabinet secretary this week decided to have a common certification mechanism by merging the frameworks of the HRD ministry and the labour ministry.

The HRD ministry a year ago had notified national vocational education qualifications framework for eight sectors and was expected to issue operational guidelines soon.

The labour ministry, on the other hand, refused to accept the HRD ministry’s formulation and circulated its own national vocational qualifications framework for approval, forcing the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene.

“Both the ministries have now agreed to come out with a consensus document,” a senior government official told HT.

He admitted that it had taken almost two years to bring the two warring ministries on board for skill development initiative identified by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as key for harnessing India’s economic potential through demographic dividend.

According to official sources, the national framework will have qualification parameters similar to one in the international level to ensure employability of those getting trained at centers set up with the help of private employers. And, the framework would be implemented by the National Skill Development Authority to be set up soon.

The framework will also define the role and responsibilities of sector skill councils to be regulated by the authority approved by a Group of Ministers last week.

The councils set up in collaboration with the private sector would be mandated to determine curriculum, develop training manuals and provide certification at different levels depending on the training.

A government official said a person with basic training would get a secondary level certificate and would be able to upgrade his training for graduation level certification.

“There would be credit accumulation and transfer based on total learning hours at each level, credits and competency based assessment,” the broad outline of the national framework says.

It will also push for modular courses aimed at virtual progression and horizontal transfer throughout the skill development system, it added.

The new framework will also recognize prior learning of a particular skill and education through on-line and distance education mode.

The National Open School and Indira Gandhi National Open University will have an important role in implementing the new framework, officials said

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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