Faced with the task of skilling 500 million youth, India today said it was implementing the US concept of community colleges to make sure that its workforce is trained to meet newer challenges.

Visualising skill development to be an integral part of the country’s education system, the HRD Minister Pallam Raju said based on the US’ experience of community colleges, India has embarked to develop community colleges.

Talking to reporters after the India-US Higher Education Dialogue here, he, however, said, “We are only borrowing the concept and not going to replicate what is happening there in the US” as the economic condition of the two nations are different.

“It is a relevant model. Over 100 years, the US has fine tuned that model. It has become much more than impacting skills,” Raju said about the skill development through community colleges. It will work closely with industry and business from the area to develop skill sets that are required from the local areas.

Meanwhile, the US stressed on jointly working towards increasing skills of students to face future challenges and said this can be done through exchange programmes and partnerships between India and the US.

“We need to make sure that next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs have the skills and training,” US Secretary of State, John Kerry said.

Those who work in government and private sectors need to join together in order to focus and meet the challenges in education, he said.

Raju and Kerry co-chaired the India-US Higher Education Dialogue.

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