DGT, Accenture, Cisco, Quest Alliance Team up to Skill 1.5 mn Youth
The three organizations have also signed MoUs with the state governments of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam to roll out a comprehensive blended learning program, which will cover more than 100,000 students from 227 ITIs across these states.
NYSE-listed Accenture, Cisco and Quest Alliance have joined hands and inked a pact with the directorate general of training (DGT) within the union ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship to offer a digital skilling programme to all students enrolled in industrial training institutes (ITIs) via the government of India’s Bharat Skills portal. The move aims at teaming to equip 1.5 million youth across India.
The three organizations have also signed MoUs with the state governments of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam to roll out a comprehensive blended learning program, which will cover more than 100,000 students from 227 ITIs across these states. The training modules will include online self-learning via the Bharat Skills portal as well as in-classroom training.
The in-classroom program will deliver more than 240 hours of training to impart skills for digital literacy and fluency; workplace readiness, including creative problem solving and use of data in decision making; and career management skills, including the cultivation of a growth mindset and the ability to identify and plan career journeys.
Kshitija Krishnaswamy, director of corporate citizenship at Accenture in India, said that the digital economy is creating opportunities — with artificial intelligence alone estimated to add more than $1 trillion to the Indian economy by 2035 — yet an unintended consequence of advanced technologies is further marginalization of people, as humans and machines work side by side.
Harish Krishnan, managing director of public affairs and strategic engagements at Cisco India and SAARC, said that digitization is accelerating the transformation of every industry in India. With the majority of our skilled workforce coming from the vocational sector, they need to ensure that the students in ITIs are digitally fluent and well-equipped to enter the workforce. Significantly, Skills to Succeed is Accenture’s corporate citizenship initiative that addresses, at scale, the global need for skills that open doors to employment and economic opportunity.