All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) have joined hands to launch a joint initiative ‘Digital Skilling’ – a free of cost skilling, upskilling and reskilling platform. “The initiative aims to provide future-ready technical and digital skills on emerging technologies to one crore Indians,” Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairperson, AICTE told FE Education Online. According to him, the platform will bring companies from all sectors under a common roof and help fill the skilled workforce gap in the country.
AICTE claims to have identified 30 emerging technologies, 55 job roles and 155 skill sets which it claims will be in demand in the next 20 to 30 years. “With 50% of the Indian population below 25 years, a huge opportunity for youth and young professionals awaits to form the foundation of the country’s economy. The facts we have gathered highlight that it is necessary to handle the challenge of the skill gap in emerging technologies by digitally skilling our youth,” Sahasrabudhe added.
The platform will offer courses on new-age technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and Information and Communications Technology (ICT), among others, along with internship and apprenticeship opportunities from market leaders. So far, 63 companies, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Service (AWS), International Business Machines (IBM) among others, have already confirmed their participation in this initiative. “We expect more than 200 companies to join hands with us in an effort to offer training programmes across categories,” Chandrasekhar Buddha, chief coordinating officer, AICTE, said.
Furthermore, the three- to six-month-long courses will cater to school students between seven to 12 grade, undergraduates and graduates or professionals. As per the body, the course curriculums are designed keeping in mind the three categories of learners – basic level for school students, advanced and expert level for the rest. The skilling platform will further provide internship and apprenticeship opportunities for undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals at partnered companies, it claimed.
