Advisor to Lieutenant Governor, Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar today chaired a meeting to review the progress achieved by Price waterhouse Coopers (PwC) on reviewing and upgrading the courses in Polytechnics and ITIs across Jammu and Kashmir at Civil Secretariat here.The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary SDD, Dr. Asgar Hassan Samoon; Principal Secretary, School Education Department, BK Singh; Commissioner Secretary, Labour and Employment, Sarita Chauhan; Director SDD, Sudershan Kumar; Special Secretary Agriculture and Farmers Welfare department, consultants from PWC, representatives of DGT, IIM Jammu and other concerned in person and through video conferencing.During the meeting, detailed deliberations and discussion was held on bringing efficiency in Skill institutes by revamping and upgrading the courses and trades offered in these institutes.Speaking in the meeting, Advisor Bhatnagar maintained that improving quality and market relevance of skill development programmes and courses is the need of the hour to remain abreast with the developing industrial trends. “Skill development is imperative for social and economic development of our nation, so there is an urgent need for skill upgrading and re-skilling of our youth ”, Advisor Bhatnagar said.
Remarking that in post-Covid world, upgraded skill attributes will be required, Advisor Bhatnagar said that lots of new job skill-sets will be required in the post-Covid world and our training centres must be fully equipped to deal with them.While speaking on the mechanism of reviewing the courses across Skill institutions, Advisor Bhatnagar asked the representatives of PwC to study the general contours of Jammu and Kashmir including the existing infrastructure and resources for developing skill development sector here. He added that revamping of ITIs and Polytechnics is imperative for addressing the Skill gap and meeting future challenges.The Advisor also asked the PwC consultants that output of existing ITIs and Polytechnics should also be looked into besides skill gap analysis and market demand should also be ascertained before the introduction of new courses or trades.Advisor Bhatnagar further highlighted that quality and relevance of courses should be maintained to make the youth future ready besides factor of employability and future aspects of development in industrial sector should also be taken into consideration before the introduction of new course.Underlining the need for multi-skilling of youth, Advisor Bhatnagar said that as per NEP-2020, the educational institutions should be of diversified nature offering courses on vocational education. He asked the PwC consultants to develop collaboration with Education Department for studying the feasibility of introducing add-on courses in schools and colleges apart from regular modules.The Advisor stressed on the PwC representatives to start the Aspirational Mapping survey from the higher school level so that the aspirations of young students can be ascertained much early.Speaking on the occasion, Principal Secretary SDD, Dr. Samoon said that Jammu and Kashmir has vast potential of creating self employment avenues and Skill Development department is tapping that potential by starting needful courses and trades from skill institutes.On the occasion, the PwC consultants gave a detailed presentation on the progress achieved on reviewing the courses in ITIs and Polytechnics across Jammu and Kashmir.