The Department of Telecom may join hands with the National Skill Development Council (NSDC) and the Ministry of Human Resources to prepare a roadmap for skill development in the telecom sector, if the draft National Telecom Policy is implemented.
Also in the works is the formation of an apex body, supported by advisory groups comprising representatives from industry, academia and public sector units, to ‘oversee and to act as a guiding and enabling source for all aspects related to skill development in telecom field'. “… create an enabling framework in partnership with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to periodically upgrade academic curriculum of telecommunications courses, which are aligned with the technological advancements in the sector for meeting the human resource requirement,” the policy document stated as one of its objectives.
Formed on a public private-partnership model, NSDC aims to promote skill development by catalysing creation of large, for-profit vocational institutions. Its main objective is to contribute about 30 per cent to the target of improving skill sets of 500 million by 2022. This will be achieved by fostering private sector initiatives in skill development programmes and providing viability gap funding.
Mr S. Ramadorai, former Chief Executive Officer of Tata Consultancy Services, is the advisor to the Prime Minister for the NSDC.
The draft document also places special emphasis on upgrading academic curriculum of telecommunication courses. This will be partly achieved by collaborating with premier educational institutes such as the Indian Institute of Technologies and telecom institutes of excellence ‘for bridging the gap between research and academics and field problems'.
Education experts and analysts say that the curriculum for students of telecommunications engineering in most colleges is outdated.
Though industry watchers have welcomed the moves proposed in the draft policy, they are waiting for specific details.
The draft says that training institutes under the DoT and its other organisations will be developed as national schools of excellence.