Afghanistan to collaborate with India for skill development

An Afghanistan delegation led by their Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, on Wednesday met Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajiv Pratap Rudy to explore possible collaborations between the countries to strengthen the skill ecosystem of Afghanistan.

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Highlighting a major concern of unskilled workforce and the migration of trained individuals from other countries to Afghanistan, the Deputy Foreign Minister informed that Afghanistan is undertaking significant reforms to structure its labour markets and develop a skilled workforce for its economic development. In this regard, the delegation sought support from the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to undertake a skill gap study of the workforce in its county to identify the potential sectors where skill development courses could be initiated.

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Sharing his keen interest in providing full cooperation to Afghanistan, Rudy informed the delegation about the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) that provides the approach to skill development trainings in the country.

He invited the delegation to nominate students from its country who could come and undertake 1 year skill development courses in India. Expressing the need to build enterprises in both the countries, Rudy further offered Afghanistan with a platform where students could be enrolled in entrepreneurship development courses through the International Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme of the National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD).

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The Skills Minister proposed the delegation to visit some of the premium skill development institutes of India to have a holistic understanding of the approach for training adopted in the country.

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The two sides highlighted the importance of such a collaboration to establish the formal skill development framework and suggested that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) could be signed between the two sides through which a Joint Working Group (JWG) would be constituted to take things forward.