By January 2018, around 30,000 students will be able to enrol in various professional courses at Delhi government-run skill centres, said Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday.
Mr. Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s Education Minister, said that work will soon begin on setting up 25 new skill centres, a dedicated university and improving existing facilities.
Dedicated university
The Minister said that he has asked the department to work on setting up new centres along the lines of the existing World Class Skill Centre at Vivek Vihar.
He added that a plan, including locations of the new centres, would be prepared within a week.
The centre at Vivek Vihar, which was set up with the help of the Singapore government in 2013, offers courses in hospitality, retail, software testing and finance.
“The centre has had good response and a 100% placement rate for students. While maintaining the quality of education provided, we want to increase the intake of students and set up new centres,” said Mr. Sisodia.
He added that the department would look at existing government buildings as well as rented accommodation to set up the centres.
The courses offered by the centres will evolve as per requirements of the industry, Mr. Sisodia said, adding that many outdated labs at the government-run Industrial Training Institutes had been shut and replaced with new facilities.
Along with 25 new centres, the Minister said that plans would also be drawn up for a skills university.
“This will allow students who have completed a diploma course to transfer to the university for an under-graduate degree, while retaining credits for the course already completed. In addition, courses run by the Tourism Department and the Hindi Academy would also be boosted,” he said.
‘In talks with govts’
With all these facilities planned, Mr. Sisodia said that about 30,000 students would be able to take admission in various courses from January 2018.
Mr. Sisodia said that while the government would like to work with the Singapore government, which provided technical help, there were other agencies from the United Kingdom and Germany that they were talking to.