Question : Digital Skill Programme

(a) whether the Government is formulating a plan to start a Digital Skill Programme to enhance the employment capability of youth of rural and semi-urban areas throughout the country and if so, the details thereof;

(b) the details of the estimated funds and the target fixed under the programme;

(c) whether it is proposed to include the rural areas of Rajasthan also under this programme;

(d) if so, the details thereof, district-wise; and

(e) the time by which it is likely to be started?

Answer given by the minister

(a) to (e) A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

















STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (A) to (E) of LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. *204 TO BE ANSWERED ON 13.12.2021 ASKED BY SHRIMATI JASKAUR MEENA REGARDING ‘DIGITAL SKILL PROGRAMME’

(a) Yes Sir. The Government already has such programmes and is also aware of the fact that digital Skills are crucial especially in the post Covid era to ensure skilling for the youth and also to address the requirements of Industrial Revolution 4.0. The Schemes are implemented across the country including rural and semi-urban areas.

(b) The National Skill Development Corporation, under MSDE, has created e-Skill India, a multi-lingual portal, providing e-skilling opportunities to the Indian youth. e-Skill India works collaboratively as an e-Learning aggregator portal by establishing strategic digital skilling partnerships with knowledge partners to bring best-in-class digital opportunities for the India youth under one roof. These partnerships have been instrumental in setting up a rich catalogue of digital-skill opportunities for the skill-seekers. Right from trade skills courses to Soft Skills, Life Skills, and Employability enhancers have been provided. Over 1400 digital courses have been catalogued on eSkill India. The courses spread across sectors, languages and domains. Most of these courses are free. The rich offerings have resulted in exceeding 1.8 mn enrolments on eSkill India.

The Directorate General of Training (DGT – https://dgt.gov.in) under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has been striving ahead in this technological age by hand holding the youth across the country and at the same time ensuring their digital skilling and industry readiness.
DGT, under the digital skilling programme has launched the Bharat Skills
(https://bharatskills.gov.in), a Digital Repository for skills provides NSQF curriculum, course material, e-learning videos, question banks and mock test etc. for CTS, CITS courses in the ITI eco-system. This helps the trainers and trainees to have easy access to books, practice papers, learning videos which enable them to learn easily their topics outside the class.
Also, National Instructional Media Institute (NIMI – https://nimi.gov.in) has developed a Bharatskills Mobile App, where students can access the content and they can assess their skills through live mock test / question bank and simultaneous evaluation.
DGT in association with NIMI, has also developed the Blended Learning - digital vocational education and training courses to augment learning of ITI students across the country. As a phase-1, the courses for top 6 popular ITI trades under CTS scheme (i.e. Electrician, Fitter, COPA, Mechanic Diesel, Cosmetology, Welder – which covers 18 lakh out of 23.5 lakh trainees in the ITI ecosystem) has been made available. These courses are already hosted on www.bharatskills.gov.in. Blended Learning will act as a key tool for trainees to acquire new skills, upgrade skills as well as to test their learning’s, can be accessed anytime from anywhere from internet enabled devices.
Links to various other digital skilling programs like Employability skills, new age courses relevant to Industrial Revolution 4.0 (upskilling) etc. have been made available to the trainees @ free by DGT in partnership with Tech Industries like IBM, Cisco, Quest, Microsoft etc through Bharatskills portal to make the trainees industry ready. At present, Bharatskills contents are being accessed by more than 34 lakh trainees.
FutureSkills PRIME is a platform for Re-skilling/Up-skilling of IT Manpower for Employability and is a collaborative initiative between MeitYand IT-ITeS SSC (Sector Skills Council) NASSCOM. The Programme would follow an ‘aggregator of aggregators’ approach for digital skills training on a national scale, with the entire platform being hosted online and seeks to create synergy and collaborations between industry, academia and the government. The digital learning platform seeks to build ‘digital fluency’ and provide certification in industry validated and government approved courses. Under the Programme, 4.12 lakh learners will get subsidised access to certified courses in any of the 10 identified emerging technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Internet of things, Big Data Analytics, Robotic Process Automation, Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing, Cloud Computing, Social & Mobile, Cyber Security, Augmented/Virtual Reality and Blockchain). As on 30th November 2021, over 18.1+ lakh learners have visited the website, over 4.79 lakhs have signed up, over 2.75 lakh course enrolments have been done. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)&National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT) Resource Centres have initiated content development for Bridge Courses under Blended Learning mode.

The Ministry of Education launched an initiative ‘YUKTI 2.0’ in June 2020 to help systematically assimilate technologies having commercial potential and information related to incubated start-up in the higher education institutions.

(c), (d) and (e) The digital skilling initiatives of MSDE are available for all across the country and the trainees can access the online portal by 24 X 7.

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