Skill Ministry launches IndiaSkills 2023-24, to target 2.5 million participants

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship unveiled the IndiaSkills 2023-24 programme and honoured WorldSkills 2022 winners. Last year, India ranked 11th in the international competition.

Speaking at the event, Union Minister for Skill Development, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan urged participation to increase from 0.25 million to 2.5 million, as this would encourage the ecosystem to prioritise competency over obtaining degrees. The minister also emphasised the significance of fostering employable talents, as this would raise the workforce's acceptance by the market.

He said, “We have to give equal importance to competencies, applied knowledge and hands-on training to lead in the 21st century, and also highlight the need for mapping skill gaps to reduce the gap between degrees earned and skills acquired”.

IndiaSkills is the predecessor of the WorldSkills competition. Participants who excel at the national level in IndiaSkills will compete in the global event in Paris next year. WorldSkills is the world's largest skill competition, held every two years and organised by WorldSkills International, which has 86 member countries.

These competitions serve as both a standard for high performance and a means of assessing vocational excellence among the workforce. More than 200 corporate and academic partners took part, including Toyota Kirloskar, Mahindra, Saint Gobain, Larsen & Toubro, Maruti Suzuki, and Infosys.

Over 1,000 participants competed in 61 skills at the WorldSkills competition in 2022 from 58 countries. India participated in 50 talents, including new-age skills such as robot system integration, additive manufacturing, industry 4.0, digital construction, mobile application development, and renewable energy. Since it began competing in 2007, India achieved its highest rank of 11th place.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.