GUWAHATI: Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Thursday released the comprehensive report on ‘Skill Development in Arunachal Pradesh’ researched and compiled by the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFi) in Itanagar on Friday in presence of Parliamentary Secretary Skill Development Jambey Tashi and Chief Secretary Shakuntala D Gamlin.
NEDFi, through its advisory & consultancy department, undertook a comprehensive and extensive study on skill development in Arunachal Pradesh. The objective is to understand characteristics of skill development system, aspiration and skill development needs of various categories of population and the global, national and local skill requirement trends and suggest suitable strategies to take skill development efforts in the state to next level.
The study proposes eight strategic reforms roadmap in skill development sector based on key aspects that have emerged during the study. These are strengthening the governance framework currently governing the skill development ecosystem, improving the effectiveness and utilization of existing technical vocational education and training institutions, making provisions for providing specialized skill development training in identified sectors relevant to the state, making general education provided in schools an integral part of skill development efforts by improving the quality and learning outcomes of school education, creating robust ecosystem of creditable private vocational training providers, improving linkages between industry and institutions providing skill development, strengthening the handloom and handicrafts sector and making extensive provisions for career counseling and information dissemination.
Khandu congratulated NEDFi and lauded the hard work put in during the last one year doing the study and collecting feedbacks and data from primary sources at the block levels in all the districts. He said the report will serve as a roadmap for the state government to plan its future course of action in imparting skill development to the youths of the state.
Directing the Skill Development department to seriously take the report, Khandu gave it one month’s time to prepare a comprehensive proposal and action plan based on the suggestions put forth in the report.
“We have been doing a lot in equipping our youths with skills but yet somehow have not fully succeeded in giving the process a meaningful direction because we did not have a proper and scientific roadmap. Let us check where we have failed and learn from these. This report of NEDFi will help us plan and execute a strategic skill development policy that will provide our youths gainful and sustainable employment,” he observed.
The Chief Minister suggested that priority needs to be accorded in skilling the graduate and post-graduated unemployed youths besides the uneducated and school drop-outs.
“Today we have hundreds of graduates and post graduates looking for employment. As government jobs are limited, we need to skill our educated youths in sectors suitable for them for employment,” he said. Khandu also stressed on giving more importance to self-employment than wage employment while framing skill development strategies.