THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
In a first in the country, Kerala Government will soon introduce Career and Skill policies to enable the youth and students to develop and take their talents to higher levels and tap job opportunities awaiting them, State Labour and Skills Development Minister T P Ramakrishnan announced here today.
The Minister was inaugurating the district-level competitions of India Skills Kerala 2020 at Government ITI, Chakkai, here, being organized by the Industrial Training Department (ITD) and Kerala Academy for Skills Excellence (KASE), both under the State Labour and Skills Department.
“A seminar was conducted recently to discuss the draft for the Career Policy and the government is consolidating the suggestions that emerged from the deliberations to give final shape to the policy and announce that at the earliest. Steps are also afoot to draw up the State Skill Policy to open doors of opportunities for youngsters,” Ramakrishnan said.
“Seeking to tap job opportunities that require various skills, the connect between the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and the industry has been strengthened. Thousands of placements are expected to be clinched through job fairs, placement cells and entrepreneurship clubs. For ITI trades, Spectrum 2020 Job Fair was conducted in all the 14 districts last week. As many as 641 companies turned up for that and 5,671 candidates were hired by various companies as trainees,” the Minister said.
“The government’s approach is to find out each individual’s talent and encourage it and create opportunities. India Skills Kerala2020 will give a fillip and energy to these efforts,” he said.
“Around 16,293 contestants have registered for participating in the district-level competitions. This marks a big jump from last year’s 7,422 participants. This shows the rising enthusiasm of students for getting training in trades. The aim of the competitions is to enable the youth to give expression to their skills and encourage them to scale new heights,” Ramakrishnan said.
The Minister exuded confidence that Kerala would get an opportunity to host the national-level competitions, World Skills India 2020, since the Central Government had responded favourably to the State’s request.
On the occasion, Ramakrishnan launched the official video of India Skills Kerala 2020.
Presiding over the function, K. Sreekumar, Mayor, Thiruvananthapuram, lauded the efforts of the Industries Department and KASE for providing such a platform for the skilled youth. In his welcome address, Chandrasekar S. MD, KASE, said the organisers of the event aim to ensure participation of at least 20 contestants from Kerala in the World Skills 2021 to be held in Shanghai, China.
P.K. Madhavan, Additional Director, ITD; K.S. Dharmarajan, Additional Director, ITD; B. Justin Raj, Joint Director, ITD; Vinod Kumar. S, Deputy Director, District Industries Centre; M.R. Anoop, COO, KASE; P. Rajan, Principal, Govt. ITI, Chakkai; A Shammy Bekker, Principal, Govt. ITI, Attingal; and M.S. Nahas, Inspector, Training, Thiruvananthapuram, spoke.
The district-level competitions in Thiruvananthapuram are being held at the Govt. ITIs at Chakkai, Dhanuvachapuram, and Attingal; Women’s ITI, Kazhakoottam; and BTC, Kollam.
Competitions are being held in 42 categories of vocational and non-vocational skills in the district-level rounds.In the previous edition, competitions were held in 20 skills.
The district-level competitions, being held in different centres across the state up to January 20, will be followed by Zonal events in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode between January 27 and 31. The grand State-level finale is scheduled from February 22 to 24, at Swapna Nagari, Kozhikode. The winners at the State-level competitions will getRs One lakh each as prize money, and runners up Rs 50,000. All finalists will get Rs 10,000 each.
The State-level winners will qualify for the national competitions and the prize-winning performers at the national round will get an opportunity to represent the country at World Skills 2021 in Shanghai, China.
