Reduce gap between Industries and Institutes: Dr Samoon

Srinagar, Sept 24: Principal Secretary School Education and Skill Development, Dr Asgar Hassan Samoon today said that Skill Development Institutions needs recalibration with the Industrial requirements.
The Principal Secretary made these remarks while chairing the meeting of UT screening committee for ‘Skill Strengthening for Industrial Value Enhancement (STRIVE)’ project.
Sajad Hussain Ganai, Director Skill Development, J&K; Vinit Saksena, Deputy Director Regional, Directorate of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship GoI and other officers and officials of Skill development department were present in the meeting.
Representatives of industrial sector from Srinagar and Jammu also are members of the steering committee and participated in today’s meeting.
The objective of the project is to improve the relevance and efficiency of skills training provided through Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and apprenticeships.
Dr Samoon directed the officers to introduce modern machinery and training in ITI’s so that the output of these Institutions have required set of skills to serve in industrial units having latest machinery. He emphasized that the manpower generated from such institutions should be market oriented so that they are in demand and earn handsomely.
Dr Samoon urged that the need of time is to introduce specialties in our technical institutions instead of only increasing the number of courses offered by them.
The Principal Secretary was informed that under the centrally sponsored STRIVE project each ITI selected would be provided Rs 2 crore for improving their performance to be monitored on the basis of performance indicators like increase in female enrolment rate, on the job training and number of pass-outs from these Institutes.
More over under second component of the project the capacities of governments to support ITIs and apprenticeship training will be done. The component envisages filling vacancies of trainers, their capacity building and formulation of their career progression policy.
In the third component of STRIVE project improvement in teaching and learning in these ITIs shall be accomplished. It would be done by improving curriculum, examination reforms and rolling out of CTS/CITS trades.
In its last component the horizon of apprenticeship will be broadened by roping in local industries. The eligible Industrial clusters will receive Rs 1 crore each from government for three years for imparting training to apprentices selected by them. The training period should be of 1-2 years duration. The Director General of Training is soon going to conduct a training cum orientation programme to evaluate proposals of these clusters.
It was further given in the meeting that some 6-8 ITIs from J&K are targeted to participate in STRIVE project. The meeting was further informed that 12 industrial clusters have already showed their interest to select apprentices.
The project is a World Bank assisted GoI project with the objective of improving the relevance and efficiency of skill training provided through ITIs and apprenticeships.