The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) rolled out the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MGNF) Programme under the World Bank loan assisted programme SANKALP (Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion) on Saturday to further strengthen district skill administration and the District Skill Committees (DSCs).

“With the successful launch of MGNF in the first pilot that had 69 fellows working across 69 districts, the Ministry is now expanding MGNF to all remaining districts in the country,” according to an official release.

The Ministry has also partnered with Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) to conduct capacity building programmes for District officials from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

“The last six years of Skill India have extensively focussed on capacity building and creating infrastructure support for vocational training across the country. Our partnerships going forward will be more focussed on strengthening the overall quality of skill training,” said Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, commenting on the initiatives.

A two-year academic programme

The MGNF is a two-year academic programme that has an in-built component of on-ground practical experience with district administration. The fellows under MGNF will acquire academic expertise and technical competency in understanding the overall skill ecosystem along with being attached to DSCs and help them manage the skill development planning at district level through the mechanism of formulating District Skill Development Plans.

The SANKALP programme will also support the Training of Trainer (ToT) system in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode that is a collaborative approach between industry and the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) ecosystem. Towards this, a cluster approach is adopted to meet the objectives and a GIZ-developed automotive cluster in Aurangabad has been selected for the pilot.

“A strategic partnership has been formed between key stakeholders of MSDE, Automotive Skill Development Council, Indo-German Programme for Vocational Education and Training (GIZ-IGVET) and Maharashtra State Skill Development Mission to implement the pilot project. The emphasis is on preparation of TVET trainers with focus on domain knowledge, pedagogical skills and industrial experience,” the statement added.