Rajasthan Skill & Development Corporation (RSLDC) Programs

Rajasthan is the first State in India to establish a Mission on Livelihoods. In order to address the challenges of unemployment and ensuring gainful and sustainable employment to the youth of the state, Hon’ble Chief Minister created Rajasthan Mission on Livelihood (RMoL) in September 2004. 

The objective of creation of RMoL was to formulate appropriate and innovative strategies to promote and facilitate large scale livelihoods for the poor and vulnerable people of the state. Understanding the importance of skill development as a vehicle for enhancing employability of working population, RMoL was rechristened as Rajasthan Mission on Skill and Livelihoods in 2009-10.

RSLDC was incorporated as Section 25 Company, a Not for Profit company, on 17th August, 2010 with the Chief Secretary as the Chairman of the Company. As part of its major action, it established skill Training mechanism by involving more than 300 partner agencies to execute the training program across the State. In its journey of 7 years it has trained around 85,000 persons/youth by offering 97 courses in 34 sectors.

Schemes of Skill Development implemented under RSLDC:

1. ELSTP- Employment Linked Skill Development Program
2. DDU-GKY- Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojna
3. RSTP-Regular Skill Training Program
4. RSDIS- Rajsthan SKill Development Initiative Scheme

Fore more details on RSLDC please visit their website:

http://livelihoods.rajasthan.gov.in/content/livelihood/en/skill-department.html

Distance education empire near to end, What next ?

There was a time when correspondence course education business was a boom. Training center were flooded with admissions into BCA, MCA, BA, MA, MBA and other similar traditional courses. Now with the order of supreme court to UGC and concerned universities, such study centers and training centers have become null and void.

In this high tide time as a lifeline such training centers are adopting skill development courses sponsored by government and CSR projects. As in most of the projects candidate is not charged so mobilization and counselling of candidate for the enrollment becomes easy. 

The most interesting thing to know about skill development projects is there is delay in release of payment to project implementing agencies which results in delay to the payments to Training Centers. Some times the duration of this delay is 6 months to 1 years or might be even more. Those who have the back up of funds arranged become successful while many quit this business of grant based projects.

One more thing, these skill development placement linked skill development projects are like a cup of tea for your business. These do not last longer. Most of the project is designed for up to 3-5 years. Now the Infrastructure and staff could not be kept idle as the cost is involved so the Training Center owners must find a way out to generate revenue. Below mentioned are the five tips which could be helpful in profit maximization for your Training Center:

1. Partner with reliable Project Implementing Agencies that too on clear Terms & Conditions mutually agreed in written
2. Check the project scope in terms of target and milestones periodic for your center and analyse the gaps when your infrastructure will be kept idle. 
3. Get partnered with other agencies for similar projects keeping the buffer time in mind
4. Get affiliated as Study Center of your State Universities for regular revenue as the projects will not provide you regular income every month every year
5. Keep your affiliation documents ready and become the impaneled Training Center for Block or District level small projects in your expertise like Data Entry Works during census etc

You will be surprised to know that government is not capable to run this sponsored skill development projects for entire population so they shall be shifting this to paid skill development projects. 

We shall discuss about it in more detail in next blog. Till that time enjoy reading and plan your strategies well. 

Kudumbashree - Kerala (State Poverty Eradication Mission)

In the State of Kerala, Kudumbashree has been panacea in eradication of poverty among the peoples of State. Since its inception in 1998 as a State Mission, it has played vital role in making people aware about better livelihoods, enterprise development, skill development and employments.

In all 14 districts of Kerala, there are District Mission Coordinators who is instrumental in achieving the goals of mission. Being the most educated State of country, It has over 90 percent literate peoples. However there is huge gap in traditional education and current demand of job industry. 

In order to minimize the skill gap, Kudumbashree has sensitized the youths of urban and rural areas with awareness of placement linked skill development programs like DDU-GKY, PMKVY, SDI and others. They have already engaged many public and private sector training agency in public private partnership (PPP) mode.

As on 30 June 2016 Kudumbashree has trained 6948 Candidates and Placed 3308 Candidates under DDU-GKY program which is sponsored by Ministry of Rural Development as per the link provided below. 

http://kudumbashree.org/sites/all/themes/kudumbashree/uploads/downloads/136310061_Kudumbashree%20DDUGKY%20AchievementStatus.pdf

The biggest challange for Kerala and Kudumbashree both is to handle educated employment. The dynamics of supply and demand in educated manpower in labor market is now growth oriented. Skill Development programs have been immense helpful in proving employment and opportunities to them. 

Employers and industrialist have now shown their interest towards the skilled and educated manpower which is easy available here in the State. Any champion employer would definitely like to take advantage of this. State Mission  "Kudumbashree" is the nodal agency of contact for any such initiative and could be contacted for same.

The office of State Mission "Kudumbashree" could be contacted on below mention details:

Address: State Poverty Eradication Mission

2nd Floor, TRIDA Rehabilitation Building

Chalakuzhy Road, Medical College 

PO.Thiruvananthapuram -695011

Kerala, India

Email Id: info@kudumbashree.org 

Ph: 91-471-2554714

      91-471-2554715

      91-471-2554716

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

RPL is known by many names in different countries. It is APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning), CCC (Crediting Current Competence), or APEL (Accrediting Prior Experiential Learning) in the UK, RPL in Australia and New Zealand, and PLAR (Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition) in Canada (although different jurisdictions within Canada use RPL and RCC (Recognition of Current Competence). France has a more sophisticated system in which assessment is known as 'Bilan de competences', 'Bilan des competences approfondi', or 'Validation de Acquis des Experiences (VAE)'. Regardless of the title, all are the same and all are RPL...As per Wikipedia

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is a platform to provide recognition to the informal learning or learning through work to get equal acceptance as the formal levels of education. It aims to appreciate prior learning irrespective of the medium of achieving it. In short, RPL is a process of assessment of an individual’s prior learning to give due importance to learning as an outcome rather than learning as process

To ensure that the candidates being assessed under RPL are also oriented to the standardized NSQF levels, QP-NOSs that would be followed under RPL will be same as the one followed under fresh training. Further, to ensure the acceptance of RPL in Indian market, various pilots have been conducted by different sector skill councils and NSDA and the learnings are incorporated while preparing the guidelines for RPL in the PMKVY

Under PMKVY, special focus is given to RPL by recognizing prior competencies of the assessed candidates and provides a certificate and monetary reward on successful completion of assessments. Average monetary reward under RPL would be around Rs.2,200 per candidate. Following allocation has been done under RPL in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY

RPL will help in aligning the competencies of the un-recognized workers of the country with the standardized NSQF framework and provide the much needed recognition, enhancing the career/employability opportunities available to them

A target of 5.00 lakhs (It was decided that 5.00 lakh numbers should be allocated to 31 SSCs. Though the steering committee has approved 3.58 lakh numbers to be allocated to SSCs it was decided on 12th September that 5.00lakh numbers should be allocated in this phase to the SSCs) for Quarter 2 to be allocated across approved sector skill councils and Job roles

The Training Partner (TP) or any other authority as prescribed by the Steering Committee will identify and counsel candidates eligible for RPL through mobilization camps & advertisements etc. The mobilized candidates can be counselled, oriented about the standardized NSQF framework and basis their existing competency will be mapped against the suitable level of the concerned Job role for assessments

The candidates enrolled will be assessed by the Assessment Agency affiliated with the Sector Skill Council on the basis of assessment criteria decided by Sector Skill Council (SSC). The candidate will need to pass in the minimum assessment criteria of a particular QP decided by the SSC

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) of DDU-GKY

Get details of Free Online SOP Certification under DDU-GKY 

As we all are aware that DDU-GKY has setup a benchmark in standardization of skill development projects in India, It is perhaps the India's first skill development project which emphasized on quality of Infrastructure and rigorous monitoring during the implementation of projects.

The "Geeta" of DDU-GKY is SOP. After research of 1 year by the top most professionals in the field of skill development, it was launched in 2013 with the name of Aajeevika which later branded as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojna (DDU-GKY). 

The entire SOP is divided into two Parts:

1. SOP Part 1: http://ddugky.gov.in/sites/default/files/SOP/SOP_Part_1.pdf
2. SOP Part 2: http://ddugky.gov.in/sites/default/files/SOP/SOP_Part_2.pdf

You can go through the SOP part 1 & 2 on the above placed links and find the beautifully drafted standard operating procedures. There are 6 Chapters in SOP Part 1 & 3 Chapters in SOP Par 2. These are the latest version of  SOP however lot many modification keep on updating the procedures/formats. For this you need to visit the website of DDU-GKY regularly.

National Institute of Rural Development & PR conduct the online certification test of SOP. Once you have qualified the test, Certification is mandatory for functionaries involved in project implementation under DDU-GKY. Different courses have been prescribed for different functionaries.you will be awarded SOP certificate which is valid of the period of 1 year. 

You can find the details of free online certification on below mentioned URL:

http://ddugkysop.in/mod/page/view.php?id=19

Once you are SOP certified, your potential as a stakeholder in DDU-GKY Skilling echosystem rises tremendously.