100 centres for skill development in the offing

As many as 100 centres of skilling excellence will be established for skill development in one year, an official statement said here Saturday.

"A 100 centres of skilling excellence, called Knowledge Acquisition and Upgradation of Skilled Human Abilities and Livelihood (KAUSHAL) centres will be established for skill development in one year. These centres will coordinate the entire skill development efforts of higher educational institutions. Enhanced funding shall be provided by the UGC," a statement from the ministry of human resource development (HRD) said.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) will frame guidelines for the scheme within a month.

The decision was taken at a two-day retreat of vice chancellors of central universities held in Chandigarh Sep 12-13. The retreat was attended by HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

A working group comprising of vice chancellors of English and Foreign Languages University, University of Delhi, central university of Gujarat and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was constituted for developing a framework for the National Ranking System.

The group will submit its report within one month.

A working group comprising vice chancellors of the central universities of Kerala, Gujarat and Jharkhand, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Tripura University, Pondicherry University and Delhi University was constituted to frame guidelines on various issues.

The issues include common admission, common curriculum, student mobility, faculty mobility and national system of credit transfer.

The group was asked to submit the report within one month.

Also, the Council of Industry - Higher Education Collaboration (CIHEC) is being operationalised to identify initiatives to promote research, mobilise resources, develop market ready manpower and enhance employability.

"The council will collaborate with placement cells of central universities for identification of the emerging areas as per the requirement of the neighbouring industries to make the students employment ready," the statement said.

It added that the CIHEC will also help train counsellors at all placement cells for better counselling and placements.

"Each university should establish a placement cell (if not already established) for all disciplines only. Every placement cell will have counsellors who should give in-house training for skill development and coordinate placements," it said.

Further, under the GIAN (Global Initiative for Academic Networks), it was said that the universities will provide a list of eminent scholars, researchers of the university (within a month) both from within the country and outside, who they will like to invite to their universities as guest speakers/scholars in residence.