Upskilling youth for higher employability. That’s better.

Employability of a skilled workforce has been a challenge in the present times, especially due to the growing skill gaps and limited exposure to the latest industry-oriented tools and equipment. With most students relying on ITIs to learn job-ready skills, the situation was getting grimmer in the state. There was mounting pressure on governments to improve employment rates and demand from industries for skilled workforce was on the rise. To resolve this pressing issue, the Government of Karnataka signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Tata Technologies for a period of 10 years to upgrade and modernize 150 government-owned ITIs across Karnataka.

With a total investment of approximately Rs. 4,600 crores, this benchmark project is set to technically upgrade the state ITIs and make them future-ready. As part of the agreement, we collaborated with 20 global industry partners to implement this project by upgrading the overall facilities, develop an ITI course curriculum leveraging its manufacturing domain knowledge around advanced areas of technology, conduct training programs, and provide equipment and software support at the ITI centers.

This project is expected to bring qualitative improvements in the field of industrial training and education. These ITIs will cater to advanced skill requirements of students as well as prospective employers and act as technology hubs, including skill centers for the large industry as well as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

Close to 50 centers underwent full-fledged external audits for readiness and nearly 53 SMEs have come on board so far. We are also running a ‘Train The Trainer’ program on domain-independent subjects such as design thinking and innovation, product design, and development. Until now, a total of 286 ITI faculties have participated and a total of 450 hours of quality training has been imparted to the ITI faculties.