The Government of India is leveraging heavily on skill development in the county. The government has planned to establish the National Council for Vocational Education & Training to give a push to the skilled India initiative. In addition to this, they have also proposed skill universities that will offer degrees like masters and bachelors of skills.
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has placed the guidelines on setting up skills universities in India in the public domain. The Skills Universities will award degrees, diplomas, certificates and other distinctions that conform to the National Skills Qualification Framework.
Skill Universities
Along with the formation of universities, the draft norms also states that the universities in collaboration with the industry will form develop centres of excellence. They will have specialised skill training labs and studios.
Apart from career counselling during their course, the universities will also have a counselling cell to assess the aptitude of students prior to their enrolment in a skill-based programme.
There is a need to have uniformity in nomenclature to differentiate between the conventional technical courses and the skill development degree level courses. Thus, under the proposed law, Bachelor of Skills (B. Skills) or Bachelor of Vocation (B. Voc) shall be used for skill programs.
Similarly, master level degree programmes shall be known as Master of Skills (M.Skills) or Master of Vocation (M.Voc).
Increasing Employment
For any skilled based programmes, strong employer connect is the main purpose. The Skills Universities shall offer sector-specific certificate, diploma and degree programmes directly related to the job roles in demand. Everything will be planned according to it such as designing the course curriculum, skill assessments, student & faculty training, apprenticeship, job training, placements, joint research projects etc. These programmes shall be different from the conventional degree courses offered by academic institutions such as B.Sc. Electronics, B.Sc. Computers, etc.
"Skills Universities will emerge as foremost institutions of skills-based education recognised by employers, nationally and internationally," said the norms.
The students shall also have the option to exit with a Certificate, Diploma or Advanced Diploma after acquiring the requisite number of credits as is being currently done under the B. VOC programme.
