BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved two schemes of Rs 5,000 crore for enhancing capabilities of government and private Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).
The schemes will also include introduction of courses like augmented reality, artificial intelligence and others.
Addressing the closing ceremony of the State-level Finals of Odisha Skills 2018, Pradhan said, the Prime Minister has approved for rolling out of the schemes in next two years. There are about 631 ITIs in Odisha which include 49 government and 582 private ones. “I urge the State Government to provide support and security to the private ITIs also on the basis of merit,” he said.
Pradhan urged the State Government for not only focusing on enhancing the skills of students of government ITIs but it should also focus on 60 lakh youngsters of Odisha and asserted that the Centre will extend all the support. “Out of 4.5 crore population of Odisha, there are around 3 crore in the age group of 16 and 59. There are about 60 lakh youths in the bracket of 16-23 years and every year about 9 to 10 lakh youngsters cross the age of 15 years. The need of the hour is to groom the youngsters and make them capable to undertake the jobs,” he said.
The Union Minister informed that a survey was conducted under instruction of the PM to know what school children are interested in including uniforms, cycles, mid-day meals and digital classrooms. The observations made in the government schools state that the children point at digital classrooms.
In today’s digital age, he said, such an event will definitely be useful for making Skilled in Odisha a brand. The Union Minister also opined that the way digitisation was evolving, in the next 25 years, at least half of the current jobs would get replaced by new ones and no one knows what will be the new tasks. It is time to brace up for the future.
Odisha Skill Development Authority Chairman Subroto Bagchi, Skill Development and Technical Education Secretary Sanjay Singh, Director of Technical Education & Training Balwant Singh and Director Employment and CEO, Odisha Skill Development Rajesh Patil were also present.