(LiveMint)
The Union government is set to oversee and regulate the skill education sector, which is suffering from poor quality control, unbridled growth and lack of acceptance in the mainstream education and training ecosystem. The multiplicity of agencies and lack of oversight has prompted the government to bring in a regulator akin to the All India Council for Technical Education, two government officials said.
This is unlike the government’s approach to the higher education sector, which is gradually being deregulated. That’s happening because the higher education sector has been tightly regulated for decades. The skills sector has, however, been largely unregulated so far, said one of the officials cited above.
Besides, when vocational education, which comes under the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), is allowed to be for-profit unlike the mainstream education sector, it is imperative to have some checks on them. The regulator for the skill education sector will play a key role in mainstreaming millions of students who pass out of the vocational education system, including the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). This will include aspects ranging from conducting exams to assess the efficacy of skills schools and sector skill councils.
