Mangaluru: Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Monday said that the high-power committee headed by him on upgrading training imparted at Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in the country would submit its report in two months.

The committee is mandated to suggest ways and means to upgrade the quality of training at ITIs, improving syllabus and curriculum in the country and it would focus on upgrading the equipment and introducing most modern systems of training.

Mr. Rudy was interacting with members of Kanara Small Industries Association during his visit here. He said that the Ministry would set up training equipment parks in the country where ITIs could get an experience about the state-of-the-art training equipment.

He said, “Most ITIs are not aware of the presence of such equipment that can change the way skills training can be imparted.” Such parks, to come up at various parts of the country, would be stream-specific, such as robotics and automotive.

Mr. Rudy said that the Ministry is also concerned about the lack of opportunities for ITI students to study further, as majority of ITI trainees are class 8 pass or class 10 dropouts. He said that there are nearly 1.8 million ITI trained students in the country who have hit a roadblock in pursuing higher education as their qualification is not recognised for entry to plus two or degree courses. The Ministry would ask the National Open School to conduct a language test for such students to grant them equivalence, the Minister said.

The Minister said that with the Open School certification, an ITI student could seek admission to higher studies either through Central or state education boards. The intention is to ensure that ITI trainees are not denied their right to higher education, technical or professional. This move would encourage more number of students to take up skills education with the hope that they can pursue higher education too. The Minister added that the guidelines would be issued in a week.

The Minister said that national occupational standards for 6,000 skills and job rules for 600 job-training have been fixed by the National Skills Qualification Framework.

The Ministry is in the process of changing the Apprenticeship Act to encourage industries to train individuals in skills with the Ministry providing an annual stipend of Rs. 1.8 lakh per individual.

Urging industries to become skills partners with the government by training students, Mr. Rudy said that the government would pay industries for such training imparted by a professionally competent agency. Industries should identify potential work areas where there is dearth of trained manpower, he said and added that Mangaluru could be considered for a pilot as it is already an educational hub.