IGNOU and health ministry joins to train 14 lakh youths: Skill India
New Delhi : In an attempt to improve the health care sector in India, the Union Health Ministry has signed an agreement with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) as part to train 14 lakh youth in the next four years. It is an effort to meet the growing demand for skilled professionals in the healthcare sector, Health Minister J.P. Nadda said.
"We aim to train over 14 lakh professionals ... Health Ministry already has a very strong collaboration with Ministry of Skill Development through an MoU which was signed in 2015 and had launched 'Skills for Life, Save a Life' initiative in June 2017," he said in a tweet.
Under the government initiative, 10 short term training programmes have been launched in the health sector, while 2,700 First Responders have been trained across 12 states, and over 200 master trainers and 35 state Government Training Institutes oriented to run such courses.
The agreement signed between IGNOU and health ministry for training Indians in healthcare programmes will be a big support for the Modi government's flagship healthcare programme Ayushman Bharat which aims to establish 150,000 Health and Wellness Centres across the country.
"Almost 14 lakh trained manpower will be available during next four years for the health sector," the Health Ministry tweeted.
"Skill development in India is moving with great speed and scale and this has only been possible with the support of our partner ministries,” said Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan
"The vision of our Prime Minister of Ayushman Bharat will only be possible through the creation of a large qualified, skilled and competent healthcare workforce. The courses are mostly in preventive and tertiary care sector and it needs a lot of practical training."
The courses under ‘Skill India’ will make sure that the programmes have a defined curriculum which will give in maximum quality benefit to candidates enrolled. All the courses under this initiative are associated to National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).
"The MoU aims to scale up the healthcare programs and create trained and quality personnel in the healthcare sector. The MoU also envisages setting up of dedicated cell for developing, implementing and certifying NSQF aligned skill-based programmes at IGNOU," Pradhan said.