NIIT ‘Community Learning Centre’ to enhance Employability among youth in urban slums
- Delhi CM inaugurates learning centre in Tughlakabad village
Smt. Sheila Dikshit, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Delhi inaugurated the first NIIT Community Learning Centre (CLC), at the Tughlakabad village in Delhi on Friday, August 29, 2008.New Delhi, August 29, 2008: In its endeavour to bridge the Education-Employability gap and harness the latent talent pool existent in urban slums—The NIIT Institute (TNI), a not-for-profit society by NIIT promoters—has set up of the first-of-its-kind ‘Community Learning Centre’ in Delhi.
Smt. Sheila Dikshit, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Delhi inaugurated the first NIIT Community Learning Centre (CLC), set up in association with NGO ABHAS, at the Tughlakabad village here today.
The NIIT CLC will provide relevant skills to the unemployed youth in urban slums for making them employable for jobs in various industry sectors such as Retail, Automobile sales, Telecommunications, Hospitality, Healthcare etc.
Flagging off the new initiative, Delhi CM Smt. Sheila Dikshit said, “It is encouraging to see NIIT come forward with Community Learning Centre, for empowering the underprivileged youth in the country. Initiatives like these will go a long way in enabling their integration into the mainstream and thus contribute to an overall growth of the society.”
According to various reports, the large population of underprivileged youth residing in urban slums and semi-rural India lack vocational skills, which renders them unemployable, even as the industry faces severe manpower shortage.
Research has shown an increase of almost 80% in hiring needs across major sectors such as IT, ITES, Financial Services, Retail, Media, FMCG, Infrastructure, Manufacturing & Engineering and Telecom etc. The demand for skilled manpower is not only in the Indian industry but the developed world too is facing skills shortage, which is expected to generate 56 million jobs by 2020.
According to Mr. Rajendra S. Pawar, Chairman, NIIT said, “The CLC is another NIIT initiative to create employment for the youth in urban slums.”
The NIIT CLC will address concerns of lack of good faculty and training curriculum; disconnect between education & training and industry requirements; and affordability for the underprivileged youth. CLC will provide the youth with model educational, training and employment services, thus leading to career-progressive jobs. This will be accomplished through NIIT’s partnership with the industry, business, labor, education and workforce development boards, the government, the communities and the NGOs.
The NIIT CLC will offer training programs of three months to one year duration for 10th and 12th pass students, residing in urban slums and semi-rural areas. NIIT plans to set up 20 CLCs in the next three years, in close proximity to slums.
NIIT CLC will offer training programs in the areas of Basic English Communication; Grooming & Etiquette; Basic Computer and Operating System Skills; Knowledge of Industry sector; and Industry specific skills such as Customer Handling in Retail. NIIT will work closely with the industry to customize training programs as per the job requirements.
NIIT CLCs will be equipped with requisite infrastructure such as computer hardware and accessories, teaching material, furniture etc, which is representative of a typical NIIT centre. NIIT will leverage technology to enhance the learning experience in the CLCs and train and deploy faculty at the centre.
The leading Global Talent Development Corporation is working with leading retail and hospitality majors to provide job opportunities for students trained at the CLC.
The NIIT Institute (TNI)
The NIIT Institute of Information Technology (TNI), is a not-for-profit Society, set up by the NIIT promoters. One of TNI's missions is to positively impact the underprivileged of the country through its educational process. To give this a concrete shape, TNI has begun a number of initiatives to better understand issues at the grassroots level and build sustainable models that can be made available to the country's like-minded institutions and to the world at large.
The NIIT District Learning Centre launched in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh last year offers skill development programs to graduates in the region, and has received tremendous response from students and the industry. The CLC in Tughlakabad is another initiative of TNI to harness talent from the underprivileged society.