National Skills Network – NSN turns 2

National Skills Network – NSN turned two on 1st May 2017. I’d like to take a moment from you to thank you for continuous support and encouragement for all initiatives in creating awareness and promoting the positive impact of skills in India.  NSN has evolved as the first dedicated eMagazine in skills and a dynamic News and Knowledge Portal in India with sustained readership in the country and abroad. We are grateful to NSDC for sharing our newsletter on NSDC / Skill India Facebook page regularly and LabourNet for their guidance when we try to learn and understand the emerging schemes, plans and programs in skilling.

It has been a challenge and an opportunity to follow the hot and happening skilling landscape in India every day, every week! Though NSN started as a niche blog in skill development in 2015, it was launched formally in April 2016 and since then our pursuit has been to improve our content and presentation by reaching as many people as possible in India and abroad. Our objective is to share the positive impact of skills by relating to the big picture of vocational training, employability and entrepreneurship and the essence of Skill India mission.

We’ve profiled 100+ key stakeholders from the industry, the training partners, government and the academia and impacted more than 61000 users through our website. Numbers apart, our Skill Talks , Skill Stories, eBooks and Resources are created from scratch and we’ve become the preferred platform to share news and views on skilling and vocational training. Our newsletter “Skill Times” has never missed an edition since last 19 months. And, your response to Skill Times – Special Edition has been overwhelming. Our Facebook page is regularly updated with interesting and relevant news and info and we are close to reaching 5000 followers. Thanks again! This instills faith and confidence in our work and we keep validating if we are on the right track. Yes we are, at this point. However, we do have dreams to grow and sustain our impact, we nurture them everyday, working smart to achieve our goals and milestones.

Personally, for me, it has been a rich and energizing experience to keep pushing the bar with everything we do through NSN. Today, skill development is mainly government driven and understandably so…however, soon we will need greater participation from the private sector with innovative business models. Entrepreneurship in vocational space is bound to enhance the aspirational value of skills and vocational education in India. There’s tremendous scope for this field to emerge as a complement to mainstream education through inclusive  models.

Today, many are not aware of vocational opportunities but gradually, it may gain acceptance and become aspirational as current obsessions about professional degrees and dominant perceptions of university degree are bound to change. This needs to be supported with well-oiled skilling systems that work in integrated manner or create interoperable means of alignment and growth. I am hopeful and excited that NSN would play a role in bringing the stakeholders together on the common platform and find ways to sustain and expand through innovative models and powerful partnerships.

I wish to share some messages for NSN to mark the occasion:

Shobha Mishra Ghosh, Asst Secretary General, FICCI

“India has witnessed a rapid growth in recent years driven by increase in new age industries and entrepreneurial innovation. With 65 per cent population being young, India is grappling with challenge of skilling millions of youth to meet the demand of new age workplace. To reap dividend of this potential workforce, the fundamental requirement is creating an ecosystem which assigns dignity to vocational education and skill development. Both the government and the industry need to revisit the recruitment criteria and move away from the degree bias systems. A massive outreach is required to bring in the mind set shift to make vocational education and technical training as a preferred career choice amongst the youth. With adequate communication and commitment from all the stakeholders, we can certainly create a rainbow of heterogeneous “skilled ideals” who can further make skilling truly aspirational.

We appreciate National Skills Network’s efforts in the ecosystem. I wish its readers all the very best in their future endeavors.” Shobha Mishra Ghosh

G P Chandra Kumar, Founder, Co-Chairman, CEO, Skillsonics

“Congrats to Madhuri and the NSN team on your 2^nd Anniversary. NSN has become an integral  part of the growing Skill sector in India and is a valuable resource  base for all who wish to follow or learn from the information it shares. I suggest that there is also  focus on jobs and skilled workforce demands of the industry in India” G P Chandra Kumar

Meena Raghunathan, Director, Community Services, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation

“The skill space in India is relatively young, and growing at an enormous pace. A platform like the National Skills Platform is vital at this stage for sharing information, perspectives and developments. This enables all stakeholders in the ecosystem to connect and provides a platform to them. It not only closes knowledge gaps, but also enables synergies and opens up possibilities for working together.” Meena Raghunathan

Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University

“It is a pleasure indeed to note that National Skills Network-NSN completes it s 2 year of operations successfully. Congratulations to the team NSN for making a considerable impact by providing comprehensive information. It has created a great deal of enthusiasm amongst ; To be skilled young workforce, Industry, Associations, Institutions building skills and Educationists. Your effort is worth appreciating. We, at Chitkara University, are very sure of its great success & contribution to the cause of building “Skilled India”. Dr Madhu Chitkara

Dr Satender Arya, CEO, Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI)

“What makes NSN unique is its neutrality and objectivity in reporting as well as the thematic changes in each of its issues. The approachability and cooperative nature of the Management besides their being well Qualified and well versed is a great Plus. The magazine stands apart from other in Skill reporting space” Dr Satender Arya

Pooja Gianchandani, German Chancellors Fellow, Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation

“Skills Development is one of the fastest growing initiative in India. The accelerated pace at which public and private programmes are being conceptualised and implemented calls for much deeper knowledge sharing beyond just news updates. In the last 2 years, National Skills Network has been instrumental in filling this information sharing gap keeping all involved in #SkillingIndia mission connected and informed. From time to time the team also brought in national and international perspective on important themes around Skills Development. Congratulations Madhuri and team NSN for this fabulous work often intense but thankless.” Pooja Gianchandani

“National Skills Network is doing a commendable job of bringing all the stakeholders related to skill development on one common platform and the best part is that it covers both the breadth (across the spectrum – right from vocational skills to while collar jobs) and the depth. It has become my go to resource whenever I need to brush up my knowledge of different initiatives or to deepen my understanding of the problem of skill development for a population as large and as diverse as India.  I would like to congratulate Madhuri and her team on a job well done and look forward to NSN becoming the largest and the most trustworthy knowledge resource on the subject.” Sarvesh Kumar

Ajay Balakrishnan, Ammachi Labs, Amrita University

“Its exciting to see National Skills Network (NSN) complete 2 years of service to the country. Being the first of its kind in India, this platform has helped me a lot in keeping abreast with all the happenings in the skills development space in India. I sincerely believe that this initiative has played a vital role in connecting various stakeholders through reporting current events, latest initiatives, best practices and success stories . Wishing NSN and its editors the very best in this endeavor.” Ajay Balakrishnan

Dr Gayathri Vasudevan, CEO, LabourNet

“For every stakeholder in the skill development space NSN has become a weekly almanac where one can stay updated on the latest news in both government and private skill sectors. Congratulations on your second anniversary! Keep up the good work.” Dr Gayathri Vasudevan

I thank you for the appreciation, advice and guidance and look forward to your support and contribution to enrich the NSN experience. I invite you to share articles, news and resources that can be published on NSN for the benefit of many.

Madhuri Dubey, Founder Editor. National Skills Network – NSN.