Govt outlines plans to push skills training into classrooms
New Delhi: The government on Monday outlined its plan to bring vocational training into mainstream schooling under the National Education Policy.
The push is meant to give students earlier exposure to workplace skills and create clearer pathways between short-term training and higher education, skill development minister Jayant Chaudhary said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
The union minister said vocational subjects are now being offered in more than 25,000 schools nationwide, with enrollment of over 35 lakh students, and added that a hub-and-spoke model has been introduced so that schools without workshops can use the facilities of nearby hub schools
The ministry has also set up 1,200 vocational labs in Navodaya Vidyalayas and Eklavya schools to address the gaps in lab infrastructure that had slowed the rollout of NEP’s mandate of vocational exposure from grade six, Chaudhary told the Lower House.
Districts with weak job markets and low college access stand to benefit the most, he said. In Odisha’s Kandhamal, for instance, 61 schools have already introduced skill courses under Samagra Shiksha and PM Shri. Samagra Shiksha funds improvements across school education, including vocational training, while PM Shri upgrades selected schools into NEP-aligned model schools.
In a move that could help students move more easily between skilling and higher education, the minister said the government has created a credit-transfer system through the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). It stores credits earned from school, skilling and higher-education courses in a digital account, allowing students to transfer and redeem them whenever they shift programmes or institutions.
Under the National Credit Framework, all credits—including those from short-term skilling programmes—are stored in the ABC, which enables students to redeem them later.
The National Credit Framework, notified in April 2023, formally recognises vocational and short-term training, allowing smooth movement between skill courses and degree programmes. The system also supports flexible entry and exit in higher education, helping students combine study, work and training more easily.
On entrepreneurship, Chaudhary clarified that the Pradhan Mantri YUVA scheme is not being restructured, but said the government is relying on a wider set of programmes—including Startup India, Stand-Up India, PM Vishwakarma and the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups—to help youth move from training to business creation.
Rajasthan, which has seen a surge in rural first-time entrepreneurs, has recorded over 55,000 sanctioned loan accounts under PM Vishwakarma and more than 15,000 loans under Stand-Up India.
For rural and low-literacy groups, the Jan Shikshan Sansthan scheme, which trains women, SC and ST communities and school dropouts, remains the key entry point to vocational training. Nearly 32.5 lakh people have been trained under JSS since 2018.
The ministry also shared its spending record, which shows a strong rise in expenditure under PMKVY to its full outlay of ₹1,538 crore in 2024-25 from ₹510.52 crore in 2023–24. The National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) has also exceeded its budget, rising from ₹632.82 crore in 2023–24 to ₹586.23 crore this year against an outlay of ₹512.24 crore.
The Jan Shikshan Sansthan programme, though, continued to underspend with expenditure declining from ₹157.25 crore in 2023–24 and ₹144.47 crore in 2024–25.
