Karnataka’s skilling ambition extends well beyond certification counts and training infrastructure. It is anchored in a belief that inclusive, quality-driven skill development is a governance imperative and that medical education, held to the highest standards, is inseparable from the state’s public health future. Together, these two portfolios define the human capital agenda Karnataka is building. Dr Sharanaprakash Rudrappa Patil, Hon’ble Minister, Department of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood and Department of Medical Education, Government of Karnataka in an exclusive interaction with Elets News Network (ENN) speaks on what inclusive skilling and quality medical education mean for Karnataka’s graduating generation. Edited excerpts:
Karnataka approved the Skill Development Policy 2025-32 calling it the biggest skilling initiative by any state. What does this policy mean for a young person who did not make it into a conventional degree programme?
It means that their path is not a lesser path. That is the most important thing I want that young person to understand. For too long, skilling was treated as the option you chose when you did not qualify for a degree. That framing has done enormous damage to an entire generation of young people who had real talent but were made to feel that their choices were limited. The Karnataka Skill Development Policy 2025-32 is built on a fundamentally different belief that skills are the foundation of a productive life and a competitive economy, and that a young person who enters a skilled vocation is making a choice that is equal in dignity and opportunity to any other.
The policy integrates vocational education within schools and higher education through credit-linked programmes. This means skilling is no longer a parallel track that sits outside the mainstream education system. It is part of it. A young person can skill, earn credits, and build a career with the same institutional support that any other student receives.
What this policy also does is bring industry directly into the training process through apprenticeships and industry-led programmes. So the young person who goes through this system does not emerge with a certificate and an uncertain future. They emerge with demonstrated competence, industry exposure, and a pathway to employment that is built into the programme itself.
The phrase “skills not degrees” is increasingly defining the future of work. How is Karnataka repositioning skilling as a first-choice career pathway rather than an alternative route?
The repositioning we are doing is both structural and cultural. Structurally, our policy framework brings skilling into the mainstream, through credit-linked programmes within higher education, through industry-led training, through apprenticeships that carry the same institutional weight as any academic qualification. We are removing the separation between education and skilling that made one feel like the primary system and the other a fallback.
But the cultural shift is equally important and harder to achieve. A young person’s choice of a skilled vocation is shaped as much by what their family believes about it as by what policy offers them. We are working to change that narrative, in communities, in schools, and through the visibility of skilled professionals who have built successful, dignified livelihoods. When a young person sees that the path through skilling leads somewhere real, the choice becomes easier to make.
Inclusive skill is a stated priority of this government. What specific steps are being taken to ensure that skilling reaches students from backward districts, women, and communities that have historically been left out of Karnataka’s growth story?
The Karnataka Skill Development Policy 2025-32 has specific provisions for women, persons with disabilities, marginalisd communities, the urban poor, and the informal workforce. These are not general commitments. The policy targets 33 percent women enrolment in ITIs and provides fee waivers for girl trainees in government ITIs. These are structural interventions designed to remove the financial and social barriers that have historically kept certain groups outside the skilling system.
For persons with disabilities, we are going further. We are organising Karnataka’s first exclusive job fair for persons with disabilities, giving them a dedicated platform for employment rather than asking them to compete in environments that were not designed for them.
The deeper principle here is one I believe in strongly. Inclusive growth is not charity. It is a recognition that the talent we need to build Karnataka’s economy exists in every community, every district, and every household in this state. When we leave a young woman in a rural district without access to skills, or a person with a disability without a path to employment, we are not just failing them. We are failing the economy. That is the understanding this government is acting on.
Karnataka is investing in expanding medical education infrastructure. How does the Department of Medical Education ensure that Karnataka’s medical graduates are not just clinically trained but career-ready for a rapidly evolving healthcare system?
The first thing I want to be clear about is quality. A medical graduate’s career readiness begins with the quality of their training environment. We have been firm about this. Institutions that do not meet infrastructure and teaching standards are being shut down. Institutions that cannot provide basic training infrastructure have no business producing healthcare professionals. We are enforcing that standard without exception.
On career readiness beyond clinical training, the healthcare system a graduate enters today is not the one their textbooks were written for. Digital health, telemedicine, AI-assisted diagnostics, and community health delivery are reshaping what it means to be a healthcare professional. Karnataka has been actively leveraging digital solutions and extending healthcare services to underserved communities. Our medical graduates must be prepared to work in and lead that environment, not just perform in a hospital setting.
The commitment of this department is to produce medical professionals who are clinically excellent, ethically grounded, and operationally ready for a healthcare system that is changing faster than any curriculum can fully anticipate.
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The Campus to Career Summit places skilling at the centre of the conversation between education and employment. What is the single most important message the Department of Skill Development brings to this platform?
The most important message is one I want every young person in Karnataka to hear, not just the institutions and the policymakers in the room. Governments can build policies. Industry can create opportunities. Academia can design programmes. But real change comes from young people who dare to dream differently, who possess skills, and who have the courage to act on them. The Campus to Career Summit matters because it brings the people who build those enabling conditions into one room and asks them to be accountable to each other.
What the Department of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood brings to this platform is a commitment to ensure that no young person in Karnataka is left without a pathway. Not because of where they were born, not because of what their family could afford, not because the system did not reach them. Skilling is how we honour that commitment by making careers accessible to everyone, not just those who cleared the right examinations.
The single message is this. Karnataka’s economy is being built for its people. Every policy we have put in place, every rupee we have committed, every institution we are holding to account, is in service of that goal. The summit is where we say that publicly and mean it.
Edited by Kaanchi Chawla | Elets News Network
