Himachal Pradesh is amongst the 19 states of the country which have been involved by the World Skill India in the world skill competition (WSC). The state is participating for the first time in this competition and Ministry of Skill Development has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 41.35 lakh to Himachal Pradesh Kaushal Vikas Nigam (HPKVN) for this purpose.
This will be an excellent opportunity to motivate the youth of the state to display their skills besides helping them inlearning how to become the best in their skill of choice. The efforts have been made to motivate maximum number of youths, especially from the rural areas to participate in this competition.
HPKVN is the organising agency with the help of department of Technical Education. After zonal level competitions, the state level competition in nine job roles were organised from 21 to 28 April, 2018. The winners of Himachal will participate in regional competitions to be held at Jaipur in May 2018 and then at national levels. The national winners will participate in the World Skills Competition to be held in Kazan, Russia in 2019.
HPKVN has selected nine job roles from six skill sectors for the competition which include tourism and hospitality sector: restaurant services and cooking, IT sector: IT networking and administration and web designing, beauty and wellness: beauty therapy and hair stylist, automotive, plastic dye engineering and fashion designing. All skilled youth of Himachal Pradesh can participate in this completion and the only eligibility criterion is that the participant should have born on or after 1 January 1997.
HPKVN and department of Technical Education completed the process of zonal level competitions in March in which 71 candidates in all nine job roles from all three zones i.e. Shimla, Mandi and Kangra emerged winners to compete in the state level competition. Every zone selected three winners i.e. first and two runner ups from each job roles.
After the zonal level competitions, HPKVN, department of Technical Education, CIPET, NIFT and Chef Association also arranged specialised trainings for zonal winners in various institutions to prepare them for state level competitions. The state level competitions were organised from 21 to 28 April, 2018 at tourism and hospitality institute, APG University, Shimla Beauty and wellness institute, ITI, Solan IT in JNGCE Sunder Nagar, polytechnic Hamirpur, automotive in ITI Shimla, plastic dye engineering in CIPET Baddi and fashion technology in NIFT, Kangra.
The state winners will be again given special trainings before they participate in regional level competitions in Jaipur from 15 to 19 May 2018.
The state level winners will be given cash prize of Rs.50, 000 each. One runner up of each job roles will be given Rs. 20,000. The winners of zonal competition will get Rs. 10,000 each and runner ups Rs. 2,000 each. The Chief Minister will give away these prizes in the first week of May, 2018 in a function to be organised at Shimla.
Nigam has conducted state level competitions in tourism and hospitality job roles i.e. restaurant services and cooking. The State level skill competition in beauty and wellness job roles i.e. beauty therapy and hair stylist was conducted in ITI, Solan.
The state level competition in fashion technology was held at National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), in IT networking and administration in Government Polytechnic college, Hamirpur, in web designing at Jawaharlal Nehru Government Engineering College, Sunder Nagar and in automobile job role at ITI, Shimla.
The world skill competition was started in 1950 to bring youth, industries and educators together to give youth the chance to compete, experience, and learn how to become the best in their skill of choice. The world skills vision is to improve the world through the power of skills. India participated in WSC through National Skill Development Corporation in 2011.
The key objectives of World Skill India are to promote skills in society to motivate the youth to pursue vocational education, champion the skills and learning for work through local regional national and international school competitions. It also facilitates cooperation between government, industry and academia.