Union Minister of Human Resources Development, Shri Prakash Javadekar on February 27, 2019 launches the Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS) for providing industry apprenticeship opportunities to the general graduates exiting in April 2019 through the National Apprenticeship Promotional Scheme (NAPS).
- The program aims to enhance the employability of Indian youth by providing ‘on the job work exposure’ and earning of stipend.
- As per the Union Minister, the education with skills is the need of the hour and the SHREYAS will be a major effort in this direction to make our degree students more skilled, capable, employable and aligned to the needs of our economy so that they contribute to country’s progress and also obtain gainful employment.
- SHREYAS is a programme conceived for students in degree courses, primarily non-technical, with a view to introduce employable skills into their learning, promote apprenticeship as integral to education and also amalgamate employment facilitating efforts of the Government into the education system so that clear pathways towards employment opportunities are available to students during and after their graduation.
- SHREYAS is a programme basket comprising the initiatives of three Central Ministries, namely the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and the Ministry of Labour& Employment viz the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), the National Career Service (NCS)and introduction of BA/BSc/BCom (Professional) courses in the higher educational institutions.
- SHREYAS portal will enable educational institutions and industry to log in and provide their respective demand and supply of apprenticeship. The matching of students with apprenticeship avenues will take place as per pre-specified eligibility criteria. The State Governments are expected to play a major role in securing apprenticeship opportunities, apart from the Sector Skill Councils, so that general degree students passing out in April 2019, gain the option of industry & service sector apprenticeship. Further, the SSCs have identified more than 100 NSQF aligned Job roles/courses in the sectors ofIT, Retail, Logistics, Tourism, Healthcare, BFSI, Electronics, Media, Life Sciences and Management, which the exiting graduates can take up under Apprenticeship program. These courses will be available to them from Academic year April-May, 2019. More than 40 higher educational institutions have already been tied up for taking up embedded apprenticeship courses.
Objectives of the SHREYAS
- To improve employability of students by introducing employment relevance into the learning process of the higher education system
- To forge a close functionallink between education and industry/service sectors on a sustainable basis
- To provide skills which are in demand, to the students in a dynamic manner
- To establish an ‘earn while you learn’ system into higher education
- To help business/industry in securing good quality manpower
- To link student community with employment facilitating efforts of the Government
Operation of the Scheme
- The primary scheme will be operated in conjunction with National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) which provides for placing of apprentices upto 10% of the total work force in every business/industry. The scheme will be implemented by the Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) , initially the Banking Finance Insurance Services (BFSI), Retail, Health care, Telecom, Logistics, Media, Management services, ITeS and Apparel. More sectors would be added over time with emerging apprenticeship demand and curriculum adjustments.
Three Tracks in Implementation in SHREYAS
- 1st Track: Add-on apprenticeship (Degree apprenticeship): The students who are currently completing the degree programme would be invited to choose a job role of their choice from a selected list of apprenticeship job roles given by the Sector Skill Councils of the MoSDE. The apprenticeship programme is normally about (6) months and would be prefixed by basic training regarding the sector (theory). The programme would commence immediately after completion of the degree programme (Starting from May each year). During the apprenticeship period, the student would get a monthly stipend of about Rs. 6,000 per month by the industry. At the end of the apprenticeship period, there would be a test conducted by the Sector Skill Council concerned and successful students would get skills certificate in addition to their degree certificate.
- 2nd track: – Embedded Apprenticeship: Under this approach, the existing B.Voc programmes would be restructured into B.A (Professional), B.Sc (Professional) or B.Com (Professional) courses – which would include not only educational input, vocational input, but also a mandatory apprenticeship ranging from 6 to 10 months depending on the requirement of the skill. For example, a BBA course in Logistics would have one semester of classroom teaching and the next one as apprenticeship. Alternatively, one full semester of an existing degree or B.Voc course would be dedicated to apprenticeship with industry.
- During the apprenticeship period, the student would get a monthly stipend of about Rs. 6,000 per month by the industry, 25% of which would be reimbursed under the NAPS programme. At the end of the apprenticeship period, there would be test conducted by the Sector Skill Council concerned and successful students would get skills certificate in addition to their degree certificate.
- The process of embedding apprenticeship & skill content into them, or modify the curriculum of existing degree courses to reduce classroom content and incorporate basic skill training with apprenticeship is currently underway with participation of the Sector Skill Councils and it is expected that these courses would be launched from academic year 2018-19.
- 3rd Track: Linking National Career Service with Colleges: Under this, the National Career Service (NCS) portal of Ministry of Labour& Employment would be linked with the Higher Education institutions. As of now, more than 9,000 employers have posted requirement of more than 2 lakh vacancies, for which the students can get considered. This would help students in institutions which do not have the facility of campus recruitment and would improve their employment opportunities. Apart from this, the students would be trained in soft skills required by the market.
Modalities
- The scheme would be operationalised by coordination of Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the Ministry of Labour.
