Govt Launches PRIME Platform For Upskilling, Reskilling Professionals

IT giants in the country have been investing a lot of money to address the reskilling or upskilling requirements of their employees. Following the trails of these private companies, the Indian government has now launched Programme for Reskilling or Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability (PRIME) to reskill the workforce in emerging technologies and job roles.

The newly launched programme is an expansion of the Future Skills initiative, which was launched in February 2018, and currently offers reskilling or upskilling in 10 emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, blockchain, among others.

Speaking on the launch of PRIME, Minister for Electronics and IT (MeitY) Ravi Shankar Prasad said that in the digital world, the trained workforce will become India’s biggest competitive advantage. “The Government is committed to working with the IT Industry and Nasscom to create India Digital Talent Stack that will propel India into a leadership position in the digital world,” he added.

Upskilling India With PRIME

PRIME will provide upskilling or reskilling opportunities for industry professionals across different segments, higher education students, and government officials. The goal of the government with this programme is to train four lakh professionals in the next three years.

For this programme, the government will invest around INR 436 Cr over a period of three years. The programme will identify learner preferences and skill gaps to acknowledge the problem of upskilling in the country.

Further, it will offer online upskilling courses in identified skill competencies. The courses provided under this programme will follow a mixed approach with both online and classroom training.

The PRIME platform will also enable the appropriate assessment and certification of learners in line with industry needs and government standards. Each learner will get a Skills Passport, where competencies acquired by the learner will be listed. Moreover, the programme will also provide learners with a Skills Wallet where they will have the opportunity to get up to INR 12K from the government as an incentive upon certification.

Currently, the digital platform is being developed in partnership with the IT Industry, academia and government. Apart from the IT industry, the existing infrastructure of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) centres will also be leveraged as resource centres.

According to Nasscom, India will witness over 90 Mn people joining the workforce due to its existing demographic dividend by 2030. The industry body also predicts that India will become the largest workforce in the world by 2030.