Launch of SHREYAS

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General studies 2

• Skill development; Education, Human Resources development
• Government schemes and policies

Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS)

Aim: Boost the employment skills of Indian youth by providing them with ‘on the job work exposure’ through the National Apprenticeship Promotional Scheme (NAPS) and the National Career Service (NCS).

Target: Cover over 50 lakh students by 2022

Ministries involved:

• Ministry of Human Resources Development
• Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
• Ministry of Labour and Employment

Objectives

• To improve employability of students by introducing employment relevance
• To forge a close functional link between education and industry
• To provide skills to the students in a dynamic manner
• To establish an ‘earn while you learn’ system into higher education
• To help industry in securing good quality manpower
• To link student community with employment facilitating efforts of the Government

Phases of the Scheme:

1st Track: Add-on apprenticeship (Degree apprenticeship)

• The students, who are about to complete the degree programme, would be invited to choose a job role of their choice from a selected list of apprenticeship or training job roles.
• This apprenticeship programme would commence immediately after completion of the degree programme (May each year) with basic training regarding the sector and will long for 6 months.
• During the apprenticeship period, the student would get a monthly stipend of about Rs 6,000 per month by the industry. At the end, successful students would get skills certificate in addition to their degree certificate.

2nd Track: Embedded Apprenticeship

• The existing B.Voc (Bachelor of Vocation) programmes would be restructured into B.A (Professional), B.Sc (Professional) or B.Com (Professional) courses. These courses would include educational input, vocational input, and mandatory apprenticeship of 6 to 10 months.
• Alternatively, one full semester of an existing 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 percent of which would be reimbursed under the NAPS programme.  
• At the end, successful students would get skills certificate in addition to their degree certificate.

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. The students would be trained in soft skills required by the market. This would improve the employment opportunities.

The ‘WHY’ behind the scheme

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.

The scheme has been 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.

Connecting the Dots:

1. Low standards in education, lack of requisite skills and unemployment form a vicious cycle which is detrimental to India’s demographic dividend. Comment. How can human resource development play a role in addressing this problem? Examine.
2. Imparting skills to the burgeoning youth population is imperative to address the jobless growth being witnessed in India. Critically comment. Also discuss the various initiatives that aim at imparting skills to different target groups.
3. Today, Skill India looks like a patient who, after having their treatment diagnosed as successful, has relapsed into a condition worse than before and is on their last leg. Do you agree? Can SHREYAS tackle this issue? Discuss.