13 new courses announced varying from 6 months to two years

To skill and upskill the youth in relevant new-age skills, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has urged the Indian states to expand the new-age courses further across their respective training centres. The aim is to keep pace with the changing digital technology age towards building ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ by meeting the local demand for a skilled workforce in the state and increasing the footprint of Indian workers in national and international markets.

Directorate General of Training (DGT), the apex organization of MSDE for developing and coordinating vocational training across the country, will provide all possible technical support to the States to formulate new proposals and train instructors/trainers for such new-age courses. In this regard, DGT has already introduced 13 National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) compliant New-Age courses that include Data Analysts and Scientists, Technician Mechatronics, Smart Agriculture, Cloud Computing, Process Automation Experts, User Experience and Human-Machine Interaction Designers, Blockchain Specialists, Software and Applications Developers, Geoinformatics Assistant, AI, and Machine Learning Specialists, Big Data Specialists, Information Security Analysts, Robotics Engineers, and E-commerce and Social Media, Specialists. The duration of these training courses varies from 6 months to 2 years.

The technologies in manufacturing and services are rapidly transforming, and the mechanical and manual interventions are increasingly becoming digitally and artificial-intelligence-led. This makes it imperative that the ITIs can train new collar workers who are adept in these technologies. The courses have been developed in consultation and active participation of industrial experts, indicating wide demand and a robust curriculum. In this connection, DGT had also written to the Additional Chief/Principal Secretaries of Technical Skill Education via a letter dated June 12 2020, requesting the launch of the new age courses in all ITIs.

Speaking about the initiative, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said, “The new wave of the technology revolution is poised to change the nature of jobs and in order to keep pace with this changing nature, we need to undertake skilling of the future workforce in relevant technology areas to meet the future demands of industries. The need of the hour is to restructure the current academic framework of ITIs to offer more robust technical programs in new technology areas of Industrial Revolution 4.0 like Data Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Blockchain etc.”

To align with the needs of industry and training in the latest technology, DGT has signed various Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with technology companies to boost 21st-century digital skillset training programmes as per the Industry 4.0 revolution. The key players with whom DGT collaborated include IBM India Pvt. Ltd., SAP India, Microsoft Corp. (India) Ltd., NASSCOM, Quest Alliance, Accenture, and CISCO. These MoUs have enabled and initiated several tech training across the country.

Source: Press Release
Release ID: 1670646
PIB
Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
Date: November 06, 2020