Launching the first ever Certificate Program for Vocational Trainers

Empower Pragati, a partner company of NSDC, launched the PGCVT (Post Graduate Certificate in Vocational Training) in collaboration with ISTD on July 21st.

It is an India-based private sector, social enterprise specializing in livelihood skill development to empower India's disadvantaged youth. They are a portfolio company of NSDC.

The vision of Empower Pragati’s vision is to transform the weakest and the most vulnerable segments of our society, and contribute to the skill development landscape in India which it does through a network of 450+ centers spanned across 19 states and 150 districts across India. 

The course is started with an aim to promote skill development in India as it is a focus area of the government and one of the most effective measures to create employment, especially relevant as we will have the largest youth population in the world, in five years.
Vocational Skilling is more than a 1000 crore industry and getting ‘Quality Trainers’ is a big gap in this space. While skilling programs have been creating job-ready youth for the past many years, the quality of the trainer has remained low. Empower India endeavors to raise the standard of the

Vocational Trainer in India to global standards through the PGCVT course.
The course will create a cadre of Trainers who are provided with the skills and competences for Training and are then certified as a Vocational Trainer. The course is open to all Graduates and above with or without industry and domain experience, who are keen and passionate to be part of Skilling India.

The course is a three month intensive training program with two month part time class room training followed by one month internship which provides practical hands on training on learner mobilization, training delivery, placement, Centre management, all of which are integral components of being a Vocational Trainer.

As the course has large elements of business management, would- be entrepreneurs have also expressed an interest in the course. “I would like to be part of the growing Skilling Industry by opening my own skilling center in my home town. This course will help me do that”, says one of the present batch members.  Also, those who want to pursue other vocations and feel that an experience in grass-root development, like providing vocational training, will help, are joining the course. “I want to be an IAS officer. But I want to know more about working at the grass root level first” says another batch member.

Plan: Empower will be rolling out this course across the country and expects to enroll and certify 500 Vocational Trainers in the next couple of years.
The course ensures 100% job placement to all students who clear the assessment.

To sum it all, a senior official at NSDC quotes that, who was present for the launch “This is something big. This is history in the making”.

Please check out https://www.facebook.com/pgcvt for more details on the course.