New Delhi : Taking Skill India Mission to new heights by catalyzing international collaborations between Indian and European institutions, First India International Skill Development Summit, a 2-day event started on Monday at hotel The Grand in New Delhi.
With a vision to support Prime Minister’s vision and need for an interactive platform in Indian skill development ecosystem, Europe India Foundation for Excellence (EIFE) has initiated to organize this event in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and France based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The event is first of its kind in skill development sector in India where a balance mix of industry, institutions, implementation agencies, state government not only from India but from the developed economies abroad participated. The 2-day event has various decision makers and renowned experts from social sectors as key speakers and panelists.
Count Christopher de Breza, Chairman of Europe India Foundation for Excellence (EIFE), said that some key sectors have been identified for collaboration combining both very basic and very advanced industries and sectors of economy, all of which are focus areas of India. The sectors include manufacturing, food processing, infrastructure development, urbanization (smart cities for example), transportation, hospitality, healthcare etc. where lot of employment potential can be explored for the unemployed youth.
“In all of these sectors, we have identified the partners in the European Union who can contribute to the entire value chain and we have brought them to New Delhi, face to face with their Indian counterparts who are looking for help in exactly these areas,” de Breza said.
He added that the intention of the summit is to build a platform where various stakeholders in the world of skill development from the European Union and India can come together to identify potential areas of collaboration and then immediately get to working together.
Manish Kumar, CEO, National Skill Development Corporation said that a big problem to bring in investments in skill sector is that one doesn’t see the return very visibly as one may see while constructing a road. He shared the Government of India’s vision about skilling and NSDC’s efforts to bring more and more industry participation in skill development ecosystem.
Uttar Pradesh Vocational Education and Skill Development Mission Minister Abhishek Mishra said that UP has identified the gaps in the education system and creating a bridge by vocationalization of school education system to change the attitude of students about skill development.
“Community college model of the US is something UP government had been trying to bring here as it paves the path for youth to acquire technical skills to climb hierarchical and social ladder,” he added.
Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission (MSRLM) CEO Mrs. R Vimala demonstrated various skill development initiatives undertaken to empower women in the deep rural areas through a short documentary. Megha Phansalkar, World Bank representative and an aspiring social entrepreneur working towards rural empowerment shared how “UMED”, is impacting rural lives. State Mission Manager Mr. George Bernard Shaw shared his views on importance of career counseling to make youth more inspired towards skill development.
Odisha Law and Panchayati Raj Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo focused on the need of skill development in rural areas. We need to create skills which can be used by people in their villages so they don’t need to run to the cities, he said.
“India and Germany are deepening their collaboration in the area of skill development. German technical assistance will be used to encourage industry-institute partnerships between Indian and German organizations,” said Wolfgang Hildebrand-Peters, Head Trainer of Germany’s GSI-SLV, one of the leading welding specialists in the world.
Chetan Rajdev from Germany’s Rexforth Bosch Group called for partnership between Indian industry and Indian Universities to bridge the gap between the two.
