A joint ILO/World Bank Technical Consultation on a National Vocational Qualifications Framework for India, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Employment and with strong participation by the social partners and other relevant stakeholders, was held in New Delhi today.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Tine Staermose indicated that skills development was a major priority not only for India’s socio-economic development, but also to retain its high growth rate and take advantage of its demographic dividend. Skills development is also recognized as a priority by India’s people and policy-makers alike, whether in the current 11th Plan or in the draft 12th Plan Approach Paper. India’s National Policy on Skills Development, which provides a comprehensive framework to address the needs of the country’s huge population by providing skills to make them more employable and help them secure “decent work”, clearly spells-out the need for a number of systemic areas to be focused on, including a National Vocational Qualifications Framework for the country. Ms. Staermose stressed the fact that though India’s needs are vast, unique and complex, the ILO and World Bank have forged a collaboration to provide integrated technical inputs into the NVQF preparation process. The first technical consultation was held in February and reviewed the NVQF experiences of different countries including those documented in an ILO study of 16 countries. This second consultation presented an options paper, to give concrete suggestions on the way forward for the development and implementation of an NVQF in India. Ms. Staermose also emphasized the critical role of social partners in all ILO’s areas of work, with skills development being no different, and the importance of stakeholders in the development of an NVQF, which has been borne out by ILO research.

While thanking the ILO and World Bank for their partnership on this important area of the National Policy on Skills Development, Mr. Sharda Prasad, Director-General of Employment & Training, Ministry of Labour and Employment, said that the Government of India asked for ILO/WB support on the NVQF since this is very new area for the country. He indicated that the inputs received would deepen India’s understanding on the pitfalls to be avoided and help in adaptation of good experiences from other countries to India’s needs, which were agreed to be very different and complex, especially because almost 93% of the workforce is in the informal economy.