Establishment of National Council for Vocational Education and Training | 11 Oct 2018

The Union Cabinet has approved the merger of the existing regulatory institutions in the skills space - National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) into the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET).

• The Council would be headed by a Chairperson and will have Executive and Non-Executive Members.
• Since NCVET is proposed to be set up through merger of two existing bodies, the existing infrastructure and resources will be utilized for the most part.
• The NCVT was a regulator and assessment body of the long-term skill education space, while the NSDA was a policy formulating body of the skill development ministry helping it devise training and industry collaboration policy for the Skill India mission.
• Apart from this, the Cabinet also approved the establishment and operationalisation of two new Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs) at Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) and Berhampur (Odisha).

Primary Functions of NCVET

• Recognition and regulation of awarding bodies, assessment bodies and skill related information providers.
• Approval of qualifications developed by awarding bodies and Sector Skill Councils (SSCs).
• Indirect regulation of vocational training institutes through awarding bodies and assessment agencies.
• Research and information dissemination.
• Grievance redressal.

Benefits

• This will lead to improvement in quality and market relevance of skill development programs lending credibility to vocational education and training encouraging greater private investment and employer participation in the skills space.
• This is also expected to facilitate the ease of doing business by providing a steady supply of skilled workforce to the industry and services.
• The institutional reform can lend credibility to the sector and can encourage greater private investment.

Background

• In the past, most of the country's skill training needs were met through courses offered by the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and under the Modular Employable Scheme (MES), regulated by National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) which was established in 1956.
• Since this infrastructure was not enough to meet the increasing skill requirements of the country as well as the skilling needs of the growing workforce, the Government took a number of initiatives to scale up the skilling efforts.
• At present, there are 20 Ministries/ Departments implementing skill development programs mostly using private sector training providers.
• However, in the absence of adequate regulatory oversight, numerous stakeholders have been offering training programs of varying standards with multiplicity in assessment and certification systems which are not comparable, with serious consequences for the vocational training system and thus the employability of the country's youth.
• In 2013, National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) was established to coordinate and harmonize the skill development efforts of the government and the private sector.
• The primary role of NSDA has been to anchor and operationalize the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) to ensure that quality and standards meet sector specific requirements.
• However, a need was felt for an overarching regulatory authority which could tend to all aspects of short-term and long-term skill-based training.
• Quality control has been a constant worry for the skill development sector in India with the mushrooming of skill schools across India. Though Skill India had been a talking point for the government over the last few years, there has hardly been any quality assessment or monitoring of the sector, essential to the supply of efficient manpower to industries .
• In view of this, NCVET is envisaged as an institution which will perform the regulatory functions so far vested in NCVT and NSDA.