NEW DELHI, May 23: India will partner the European Union in implementing a ‘Skill Development Project’ to address the problem of dearth of qualified trainers for imparting skills to the country’s burgeoning young population.
EU’s Ambassador to India Joao Cravinho and Union Labour Secretary Mritunjaya Sarangi today launched the project for which the EU would be providing technical expertise and 6 million euros in the next four-and-a-half years.
Speaking on the occasion, Sarangi said that the government had set an ambitious target of providing skills to 500 million workers by the year 2022. Trainers, who are in shortage, are required to train this large number of people, he added.
“Recently, the Cabinet secretary called a meeting of all the Chief Secretaries of the states on skill development. All the secretaries, while stressing the need for skill development, also said that they suffered from this problem of dearth of adequate trainers,” Sarangi said.
“What the European Union is going to do for us is providing help in this critical area,” he added.
Sarangi added that the EU would also help India in developing of a National Vocational Qualification Framework and a National Labour Market Information System.
EU Ambassador Cravinho said that by 2020, there would be a shortage of 47 million workers in the world while India would have a surplus of 56 million people in the working ages.
India could could earn dividends from its young age profile if they are skilled, Cravinho said.
“In order to achieve this dividend, the young people of India need to be trained. If India achieves that, there would be no stopping this country in the 21st century and we in the European Union would be very please to be India’s partners in this process,” Cravinho said. (PTI)