Australia and India have decided to map common standards on job roles and further strengthen bilateral cooperation on skill development. The Indian Government has also decided to expand the capacities of 12,000 industrial training institutes.

At the ‘3rd India Australia Skills Conference: Skills for Better Business’ in Mumbai on Wednesday, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the National Skill Development Corporation, India (NSDC) and TAFE Directors, Australia, on Technical and Vocational Education and Training cooperation. The purpose is to further strengthen cooperation between the two to enhance and extend bilateral cooperation between Australia and India, a statement noted. The aim is to contribute positively to the development of technical and vocational education and training related linkages between India and Australia, it added.

Better training

Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister for Labour and Employment, was present at the signing. In a statement, he said that with India going to add 10 million people to the work force each year, for the next 15 years, they would all need to be skilled and employed.

He informed the ministry had launched a scheme for flexi memorandum of understandings between industry and industrial training institutes, which would lead to a minimum of 80 per cent of placement in the industry.

Around three years ago, the India-Australia engagement on skills development had made an initial foray. The project has made rapid progress. It may be recalled that during the visit of the Indian delegation to Australia in July 2014, five sectors were identified and one or more critical job roles were taken up for developing the Indo-Australian Trans National Standards.

These job roles are facing a shortage of skilled manpower in Australia. Indian candidates, when trained and certified to these Trans National Standards, would be available to cover the skills shortage in Australia. Ian McFarlane, Minister for Industry, Australia noted that an exchange of mutually beneficial standards in the skills landscape was bound to build strong resources for both countries.

Indian workforce

In a statement, he pointed out that by 2020, 25 per cent of the total international manpower employed would be Indian, and hence it is the most opportune time to bring vocational training in India to an international standard for higher mobility.

Dilip Chenoy, CEO of NSDC said, “In three months, Indian automotive, IT, telecom, retail and healthcare sectors, in collaboration with their Australian counterparts, have already completed preliminary mapping of the Standards. A final draft of completely mapped standards, with resultant identified gaps, would be available by end of December 2014.” Steps have also been initiated for collaborative efforts between Indian and Australian training providers in order to offer higher quality training delivery and ‘Train the Trainer’ modules.

Successful candidates would then be available to take up employment in Australia or other territories such as West Asia, where Australian standards are accepted, the statement added.

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