By IANS,
Bangalore: Leading vocational training provider Indian Institute of Job Training (IIJT) Tuesday unveiled a countrywide VSAT (very small aperture terminal) facility to enable last mile access to employability enhancement training.
“The two-way satellite ground station (VSAT) will enable us to give quality career skills training to all candidates, including those in remote locations where access to quality faculty, infrastructure and exposure to industry professionals is limited,” IIJT chief executive Ashish Prasad told reporters here.
The facility is set up in partnership with the country’s largest staffing solutions firm TeamLease Services to enhance career skills by taking training and industry insight to job seekers.
The institute plans to have VSAT link at 250 centres across the country by December from 25 centres currently through its partners.
“We are also setting up VSAT classrooms in employment exchanges operated by TeamLease with state governments in Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan on public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
TeamLease set up the country’s first PPP-based employment exchange — the Karnataka Employment Centre (KEC) — with the state government in July to deliver services covering registration, assessment, counselling, training, certification and placement.
“This satellite training represents an important move in making geography history. The speed limit to quantity and quality in our vocational training across 4,000 towns and 600,000 villages is qualified trainers,” TeamLease chairman Manish Sabharwal said on the occasion.
Stressing on the need to fix the people supply chain to prevent what could turn out to be a demographic disaster due to lack of right skills amongst the workforce, Sabharwal said the TeamLease National Employment Framework (TNEF) would look at jobs across various industries, their descriptions and associated functions to build profiles of about 15,000 candidates.
“Non-availability of quality faculty across the country particularly for advanced modules is one of the reasons for investing into satellite technology. At least 25 percent of our career courses will be taught from the studio,” Prasad noted.
The institute is also launching a series of career seminars by real-life professionals from across various industries for the benefit of job seekers and students, many of whom make their career decisions without research, role models or active discussions.
With about 90 percent of employment in the informal sector, these seminars create a unique opportunity for interaction with formal sector professionals for students across the country.