New Delhi, February 2022.

While presenting the Union Budget 2022-23 in Parliament today the Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the skilling programmes and partnership with the industry will be reoriented to promote continuous skilling avenues, sustainability, and employability. The National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) will be aligned with dynamic industry needs.

Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood – the DESH-Stack eportal – will be launched. This portal aims to empower citizens to skill, reskill or upskill through on-line training. It will also provide API-based trusted skill credentials, payment and discovery layers to find relevant jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Finance Minister announced that the Startups will be promoted to facilitate ‘Drone Shakti’ through varied applications and for Drone-As-A-Service (DrAAS). In select ITIs, in all states, the required courses for skilling, will be started.

Smt Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a Digital University will be established to provide access to students across the country for world-class quality universal education with personalised learning experience at their doorsteps. This will be made available in different Indian languages and ICT formats. The University will be built on a networked hub-spoke model, with the hub building cutting edge ICT expertise. The best public universities and institutions in the country will collaborate as a network of hub-spokes.

Smt Nirmala Sitharaman said that due to the pandemic-induced closure of schools, children, particularly in the rural areas, and those from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and other weaker sections, have lost almost 2 years of formal education. “Mostly, these are children in government schools. We recognize the need to impart supplementary teaching and to build a resilient mechanism for education delivery. For this purpose, ‘one class-one TV channel’ programme of PM eVIDYA will be expanded from 12 to 200 TV channels. This will enable all states to provide supplementary education in regional languages for classes 1-12”, she said.

The Finance Minister added that in vocational courses, to promote crucial critical thinking skills, to give space for creativity, 750 virtual labs in science and mathematics, and 75 skilling e-labs for simulated learning environment, will be set-up in 2022-23.

High-quality e-content in all spoken languages will be developed for delivery via internet, mobile phones, TV and radio through Digital Teachers.

A competitive mechanism for development of quality e-content by the teachers will be set-up to empower and equip them with digital tools of teaching and facilitate better learning outcomes.