1.2 Lakh ITI Students Can Benefit From Bharatskills Portal: Centre
The Directorate General of Training (DGT) has joined hands with Microsoft and NASSCOM Foundation to provide digital content for Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) students and make the employability skilling programme future-ready.
Nearly 1.2 lakh students in around 3,000 ITIs across the country can benefit from a digitised e-learning module via the Bharatskills portal, the government said on Thursday. The Directorate General of Training (DGT) has joined hands with Microsoft and NASSCOM Foundation to provide digital content for ITI students and make the employability skilling programme future-ready.
The DGT, under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, is responsible for implementing long term institutional training to the nation's youth through its extensive network of about 15,000 industrial training institutes (ITIs) and 33 National Skill Training Institutes. "Nearly 1,20,000 students in around 3,000 ITIs across India can be benefited by this digitized e-learning module via the Bharatskills portal," the ministry said in a statement.
DGT plays a key role in the execution of vocational training schemes and in making the 'Skill India' dream become a reality. Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Mahendra Nath Pandey said, "Through the DGT-Microsoft partnership, we are aiming to impact thousands of students by enabling digitization in education and hope it to reach more students and teachers soon." "As the pandemic is compelling fast-track digital transition, these new learning initiatives will empower young learners with technical and market-oriented skills," he added.
DGT launched an online learning platform called Bharatskills in October 2019. This is a central repository for skills providing easy access for the trainees and trainers of the ITI ecosystem to access updated curriculums and course content of all courses under the Craftsmen Training Scheme, question banks, mock/practice papers, learning videos, among others. During the current COVID-19 pandemic scenario, the usage of Bharatskills learning platform has increased multifold from around 90,000 users in March 2020 to more than 16.55 lakh users having accessed the portal as on date, the statement said.
Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, said, "Empowering the next generation of learners with industry relevant digital skills is critical as we move towards building economic resilience. The last few months have accelerated the need for upskilling and has shown clearly that the future of learning will be supported by technology."
