From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Jan 25: As many as 62 different trades have been included in the newly formed State Council for Vocational Training (SCVT), established on the lines of the National Council for Vocational Training, for providing training to all youngsters aged above 14 years in different skills and technical courses, according to Karnataka’s Labour Minister B N Bacche Gowda.

He was addressing a function to mark the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for establishing the first-ever regional chapter of National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET), Quality Council of India (QCI) and Karnataka Vocational Training & Skill Development Corporation in Bangalore on Tuesday.

The minister said SCVT in collaboration with QCI would provide training to all youth of 14 years and above starting from SSLC passed and even those who have failed for learning new courses and upgradation of their skills consisting of different durations ranging from six months to one year and upto two years. These training programmes would cover Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Industrial Training Centers (ITCs), he said.

Pointing out that the state government would provide office space and infrastructure facilities to the first-ever regional chapter of NABET (QCI) in the city for operating credible and transparent local accreditation mechanism to the vocational training providers, he said the state government was very keen on ensuring that the unemployed youth were provided with adequate job opportunities.

The B S Yeddyurappa regime during the last 30 months had organized 22 job melas in different districts and had taken steps to provide training to as many as 2,81,868 persons, of whom as many as 1,89,510 had been provided jobs so far. ``We would strive our best to fulfill the government’s target of creating 10 lakh jobs over a period of five years,” he said.

Explaining the government’s efforts to reorganize the employment exchanges in the state into human resource development (HRD) centers, Bacche Gowda said the unemployed youth will get training, A mechanism for starting registration of all the youth who undergo training at SCVT would be started, he said mentioning that the first HRD centre was established in Bijapur. About a dozen more HRD centers would be established this year, he said.

Dr Giridhar J Gyani, QCI Secretary-General, lauded the pro-labour attitude and proactive policies of the Yeddyurappa regime in coming forward to establish the first-ever state chapter of NABET (QCI) under the Department of Employment and Training and felt the regional center in the state would become a role model for all other states in the country.

He underscored the need for restructuring the industrial training institutes with good curriculam, qualified teachers and other facilities. The fact that Karnataka set up the NABET (QCI) with hardly three letters and a few email messages was proof of the Yeddyurappa regime’s progressive and proactive policies of minimum of government and maximum of governance, he said.

Dr Gyani suggested that the state government should adopt a similar approach to upgrade and restructure the school infrastructure in order to improve the status and standards of government schools and raise them to the level of Kendriya Vidyalayas.

QCI Director Vipin Sahani and Dr Vishnukanth S Chatpalli, Executive Director of KVTSDC, spoke. State Government’s Labour Department Secretary Ramesh Zhalki attended the function.