Transformingskills and entrepreneurship

In sync with the government’s plan to skill people, several educational institutes have tied-up with NSDC. Recently, Ministry of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, led by Rajiv Pratap Rudy, held it’s first 'World Skills Day' on July 15, 2015 where Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally unveiled the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015. The government has taken several such initiatives to bridge the gap of skilled manpower crunch in the country across sectors. Not only this, India has signed 13 MoUs with 12 Canadian Educational Institutions, including nine colleges.

What is NSDC?

The NSDC provides skill development funding either as loans or equity, and supports financial incentives to select private sector initiatives to improve financial viability through tax breaks etc. Its financing initiatives provide funding via loans, equity and grants.

On the financials, the corporation is more flexible upfront in terms of percentage of total project funded by it. It channelises funding i.e. grant or loan/equity and cost per student, and ensures agreements are structured to ensure these parameters become stringent over time.  

Boosting up industry

In 2011 itself, a study conducted by FICCI-PwC had projected that the Indian Wellness Services industry will face a likely shortage of 600,000 skilled personnel by 2016. The same FICCI-PwC report had forecast that the number of people employed in the Wellness space could potentially almost treble from over 1 million in 2011 to 3 million by 2015. Earlier, a separate Skill Gap study conducted by IMaCS - the consulting arm of domestic credit rating agency ICRA - on behalf of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) had projected a likely shortage of 545,000 beauticians alone by 2022. Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry is further boosting up the franchising industry as the franchisees will also get more opportunities to align with these vocational training brands.

Leading franchise players, partnered with NSDC

VLCC is among the first companies in the country to articulate the need for skilled manpower to ensure the sustainable growth of India Inc. As far back as 2001 when skill development had not acquired the importance, it does today among all stakeholders, VLCC set up its first training institute for beauty and nutrition in Delhi to ensure that young people acquired the skills that would help them to make good careers for themselves in the beauty and wellness space which had just started to take off then.

“VLCC has been closely working with several Central government ministries and departments, particularly the Union Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment, and various state governments, besides education boards such as the CBSE to increase the pool of skilled people in the beauty and wellness domain. VLCC Founder Vandana Luthra chairs the industry-led and government-backed Beauty & Wellness Sector Skill Council, which going forward will form the bedrock for all skills training in the beauty and wellness domain. Apart from being a Member of the Central Apprenticeship Council (CAC), VLCC chairs the Directorate General of Employment & Training’s (DGET) Mentor Council for development of standard syllabi in Beauty Services courses for Industrial Training Institutes,” says Sandeep Ahuja, Managaing Director and Group CEO, VLCC Health Care Ltd.

Today, with 59 campuses in India and Nepal nearly 10,000 students graduate every year from the VLCC Institutes of Beauty & Nutrition. It forms possibly the biggest chain of vocational education academies in this domain across Asia.

Another vocational education brand AISECT centres has partnered with the NSDC to skill about 1.3 million people in ten years. AISECT that offers a wide range of courses with the objective of addressing the skill gaps pertinent to the emerging needs of a rapidly growing economy.

It has eleven major academies, which offer low cost, high quality teaching through university certified undergraduate, postgraduate, certificate and diploma courses in varied areas.

Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director at AISECT says: “We have also partnered with the Central and State governments for several skill development and capacity building programmes. Meanwhile, AISECT’s recent collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Microsoft and National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) to facilitate skill based education increases the organisation’s credibility in the vocational education industry. We also have an online portal that endeavors to empower students in the remotest corners of the country with anywhere, anytime access to education.”

After establishing itself in the skill development space across India, NIIT has taken its next leap by working with the Government of India through an engagement with NSDC. As a part of this initiative, NIIT proposes to set up ‘NIIT Yuva Jyoti Skill Development Centres’ in partnership with NSDC to address the demand of skilled workforce in the Services Sectors and for service roles in all sectors. The brand’s vision and mission is ‘To transform millions of unskilled Indian youth into readily employable global professionals, through NIIT’s Yuva Jyoti Skill Development Centres.’