Around 23 lakh students graduating from over 13,000 industrial training institutes across the country may soon be awarded certificates equivalent to the ones given to ICSE and CBSE Board pass-outs.
A proposal for the establishment of a separate board benchmarked with the quality standards of CBSE and ICSE, which was mooted by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, has been accepted by the HRD ministry.
"First time we have decided, and the HRD ministry is on the same page, that we are going to establish a Board for a certification of equivalency of CBSE and ICSE to all these 2.3 million students (in ITIs)," Union Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said addressing the media.
He said the ministry was working in the direction to establish a national board so that exams all over the country are conducted on the pattern involving 70 per cent practical and 30 per cent elective subjects.
Rudy asserted that industrial training institutes (ITIs) will come up like CBSE and ICSE schools in the days to come, adding that the ministry has completely revamped their infrastructure requirements and syllabus.
The minister said the figure of 2.5 per cent skilled workforce in India put out by the National Sample Survey Organisation was "not true" as there were many areas which have not been captured while arriving at the outcome.
Rudy said the ministry was looking at the services sector "in a big way" towards skilling its workforce to meet the demands of the industry. At another event here, Rudy said the government is imparting skill-based training for entry-level jobs and employment opportunities for people in the unorganised sector including those seeking to work abroad as drivers and domestic help.
"Ideally, such basic skills should be imparted at the school level itself but since it did not happen, it is being taken up separately by the government," said Rudy while addressing an Assocham Skill India Summit.
Rudy also said there have been many instances where people went abroad to work as a driver or as domestic help but since they were not aware of the rules, law and order of that foreign country they got caught and were imprisoned for unknowingly doing something wrong.
He, however, conceded that the government is finding it difficult to train as many people in accordance with the demand of the industry.
Rajiv Pratap Rudy