Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has identified ‘Skill Bench-marking’ as a high priority area in its foreign engagements. However, given the lack of any unified/collective global benchmark standards, MSDE has decided to take up the issue bilaterally with selected countries. Presently, requirement of bilateral skills benchmarking has been recognized as an area of cooperation by India and United Arab Emirates (UAE), KSA. Further, MSDE has also taken up the matter during the bilateral negotiations with Australia, Singapore, and other countries.
As an initial step to the objective of Skill Harmonization and Benchmarking of Job roles, NSDC International under the aegis of MSDE has done a global assessment of demand for the skilled work force in 16 destination countries namely, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, United States of America, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.
MSDE is working for international mobility of skilled, trained, and certified workers from all over India including rural areas. At present India is witnessing an unprecedented opportunity in the form of the ‘demographic dividend’ with 60% of Indian population in the working age group. Of these, around two third people are residing in rural areas. This gives India a unique position and by leveraging this India can become a global supply hub of skilled and trained workforce.
In order to utilize this opportunity, MSDE has taken various steps in this regard; such as bilateral engagements with different countries to provide a framework of cooperation in areas like information exchange, standard setting, recognition of qualification, etc. NSDC under the aegis of MSDE has singed Business to Business Agreements with business entities of various countries to facilitate overseas mobility of Indian skilled workforce, capacity building of trainers, employer engagements, etc.
Furthermore, to facilitate the international mobility of skilled manpower, a dedicated company namely NSDC International (NSDC I), a 100% subsidiary of NSDC has been set up. NSDC (I) is aiming to create a network of Skill India International (SII) Institutions by involving Government and Private institutions. SII will provide global career mobility opportunities to the aspiring candidates in an internationally bench marked quality skills ecosystem.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.
Source : https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1884937
