MSDE along with NSDC, Wadhwani Foundation to take skill and entrepreneurship development to national scale

Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and the Wadhwani Foundation announced a strategic partnership to catalyse Government of India's broad policies and new initiatives on skill development and entrepreneurship.

Key areas of collaboration include creating specific programs on entrepreneurship education & training within our college systems, integrating skills at school and higher education levels, skill development through multi-skill Institutes and skill universities, fostering an ecosystem of mentors & investors, supporting policies for both entrepreneurship and skilling,  and setting up of a National Project Implementation Committee.

Minister of State (I/C) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, "Strategic partnerships with organisations that express deep interest to promote entrepreneurship and encourage skill development initiatives in India is a big step towards scaling skilling initiatives in India. This cooperation has given us enough strength and support to carry forward the initiatives in this sector."

"The creation of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, envisaging to bring under one umbrella skill development programmes currently spread across various Ministries and Departments. The outcome is to create more jobs such that people who are skilled and trained get employed and the demand of the demographic dividend of the country is satiated," Rudy added further.

Wadhwani Foundation will leverage this partnership with MSDE and NSDC to upscale its existing Entrepreneurship Education Program in universities/colleges over the next 3 years. This will include creation of online entrepreneurship content, pedagogy and best practices and delivered through ICT by qualifying and training Entrepreneurship Educators and local faculty. A few central hubs along with many regional centres each for designing, facilitating, monitoring and evaluation will be the facilitators.

Dr Romesh Wadhwani, Founder & Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation, said, "Wadhwani Foundation is committed to help Govt. of India in its efforts on skilling and entrepreneurship leading to meaningful employment to millions of young Indians. The Foundation is leveraging its existing successful Initiatives, National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and Skill Development Network (SDN) to massively scale entrepreneurship and skill development in India through online multimedia technologies and government, academia and industry partnerships.

"I am delighted that this partnership between the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), the Wadhwani Foundation and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) with the goal of creating and filling 25 million organized sector jobs by 2020 will go a long way in meeting our joint objective of combining job growth with economic growth," said Wadhwani.

Government of India and the State Governments are now engaged in several initiatives to integrate skilling in schools and institutions of higher education. Such efforts are supported by NSDC and Wadhwani Foundation independently. However, MSDE will now provide such support in a more organized and structured manner and on a larger scale by pooling of resources and setting up of Programme Management Units (PMU) at the State level or below, for different skill initiatives of Government of India.

Sunil Arora, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship stated that the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) of the Foundation has created a strong network through 600 colleges, 4000 mentors and 3000 faculty members that continue to create and support emerging young entrepreneurs. The entire ecosystem of skilling is intricate and involves not just skilling but also re-skilling, up-skilling and multi-skilling. These are the real islands of excellence and need to be scaled up throughout the country.

Wadhwani Foundation's funding will be utilised on initiatives relating to programme design, institute design, curriculum design and development, faculty development, etc. MSDE, NSDC and Wadhwani Foundation will set up a National Project Implementation Committee (NPIC) which will review the setting up and working of PMU on a periodic basis.