OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2012. CMC and Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand, today announced an alliance to offer vocational education and training from CMC Academy centres in India. The MoU was signed in Mumbai by Mr Ramanan, CEO and managing director, CMC, and Dr Rick Ede, chief executive of Unitec, in the presence of Steven Joyce, New Zealand Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Ramanan said, “The CMC Education and Training SBU is committed to bridging the skills gap between what the industry needs and the training currently available in India. The focus is to create specific job-enabling training programmes and proactively assist in the job placement process. The alliance with Unitec will help us to offer world-class vocational training that will accelerate vocational training and job placements in India and potentially other emerging geographies.”

“India’s increasing pace of development means there is a huge need for skilled manpower,” said Dr Ede. “This partnership with CMC is about building capability in delivering work-integrated vocational training in India. CMC is a well-regarded established education and training provider, so working with them to deliver a curricula that will meet their training needs is a great opportunity for Unitec."

CMC Academy and Unitec will work together to provide training programmes to address the skill gap in areas like hospitality, organised retail, automobile servicing, health care, construction technology and textiles. Students will be offered world-class training which is adapted to the Indian market and industry requirements.

Arun Varma, CMC’s global business head for education and training, said “CMC Academy offers industry-relevant education and training in IT, finance and accounts, of the highest quality, and is committed to extend this to other vocational streams as well.”

CMC Academy currently offers job-enabling training in IT, accounting and finance and several skill areas through 250 plus training locations across India.

India’s accelerated economic growth and increasing demand for skilled manpower will require intensive efforts to achieve the target of up-skilling 500 million workers by 2022. Recent estimates show only 10 percent of the total workforce in the country is receiving some kind of skills training (2 percent with formal training and 8 percent with informal training). According to the NSSO survey, only 6 percent of the total workforce (459 million) is in the organised sector. The World Economic Forum indicates that only 25 percent of all Indian professionals are considered employable by the organised sector. The unorganised sector is not supported by any structured skill development and training system to acquire or upgrade skills.