Govt to Come up with Digital University Frameworks: Dharmendra Pradhan

The government is in the process of setting up a Digital University in India to promote education and skill development. The Centre is working on frameworks to set up this one-of-a-kind varsity, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Education said.

“NEP 2020 envisions skill and education as one. We are coming up with Digital University with multiple entry and exit frameworks along with an academic bank of credit to facilitate our workforce. The industry needs to adopt these policy reforms and flexible frameworks,” the minister said while addressing the ‘13th Global Skills Summit – Education to Employability: Making it happen’, organized by FICCI.

Pradhan called for building a stronger connection among academia, industry, and policymaker along with a collective approach to drive effective transformation in the education and skills sector. “India is blessed with a demographic dividend. Education and skills have to play an important role in converting our demographic dividend into a transformative powerhouse,” he added.

Highlighting the advantages of India in the next 25 years, Pradhan said that there is no other nation in the world that has such huge captive, aspirational, and high purchasing capacity. India’s domestic fundamentals are very strong and despite COVID, the Indian economy maintained 7-8 per cent growth rate and is moving towards double-digit growth, he asserted.

There is a need for leveraging skills to boost employability, reap the demographic dividend and make our skills ecosystem more vibrant. “For India to be more productive and robust, we must make our workforce more educated and skilled. The simplification of labour codes and the apprenticeship act has added more vibrancy to our workforce. We are bringing in more reforms to make our workforce more productive,” emphasized Pradhan.

TV Mohandas Pai, Honorary Advisor, FICCI Skills Development Committee and Chairman, Manipal Global Education said that it is time that we look at introducing skills policy for each state separately and within each state, we look at districts. We need to intertwine industrial policy with skills policy. He also urged the government for establishing a job incentive program in the next Budget.

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