Bildungsunternehmen Everonn soll 15 Millionen Inder qualifizieren

Das Bildungsunternehmen Everonn Education Ltd unterzeichnete Mitte April ein Abkommen mit der indischen National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Dabei sollen 15 Millionen Kandidaten in den nächsten 12 Jahren qualifiziert werden. Für das Unternehmen bedeutet das Einnahmen von mehr als 2 Milliarden Euro.

Everonn, NSDC ink deal to train 15 mn candidates

Education company to train candidates over the next 12 years; aims to generate Rs14,000 cr in revenue

Education company Everonn Education Ltd on Monday signed an agreement with the government co-promoted National Skill Development Corp. (NSDC) to train 15 million candidates in a deal that will, over the next 12 years, generate Rs14,000 crore in revenue for the company.

The entire project will be carried by Everonn Skill Development Ltd (ESDL), a subsidiary of Everonn Education that will set up 217 centres across India.

Both Everonn and NSDC made the announcement in Mumbai and said the total investment required for this would be Rs153.76 crore. While the NSDC will buy a 27 Prozent stake in ESDL for Rs14.15 crore, it will also extend it a loan of Rs101.34 crore. ESDL will invest Rs38.27 crore initially and, according to Everonn Education’s managing director P. Kishore, Rs300 crore in the next two years.

"ESDL will be training 15 million people over the next 12 years. The average course fee is expected to be approximately Rs9,000 per person with the course ranging from 30 days to six months… This may translate into an overall revenue generating potential of approximately Rs14,250 crore over the next 12 years," Everonn said in a statement.

NSDC, which aims to train 150 million people by 2020, said the deal is the largest in terms of the number of people who will be trained.

The initiative is part of a larger national mandate to train 500 million people to bridge the growing mismatch between education and employment. While NSDC itself has a mandate to train 150 million, several Central government ministries will take care of the task of training the others.

"With the involvement of private sector majors like Everonn, I am sure we will achieve our goal to upgrade skills to match international standards. The scope is vast and there is more work for education companies," said Dilip Chenoy, managing director and chief executive officer of NSDC.

According to NSDC, ESDL will impart training in nine labour-intensive sectors-textile, construction, automobile, organized retail, tourism, hospitality, health care services, media and entertainment, basic engineering, and IT and IT-enabled services.

The company will start its training programme in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and then go national. The training will happen the traditional way as well as through technology-enabled platforms (e-learning).

Chenoy said that the beneficiaries will be primarily from tier II and tier III (or smaller) cities and that the training would come with placement assurances "which (will) come through industry tie-ups".

Experts say vocational education is the need of the hour and that most students graduating from colleges still need training. "Employability is a bigger issue than employment," said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of TeamLease Services Private Ltd, a staffing services company.

A 2010 report by audit and consulting firm KPMG said that inadequate skills is a major area of concern in India and added that training could change the contours of the country’s job market. India’s automobile sector alone faces a shortage of 300,000 skilled workers, the KPMG report said.

According to the government, only 10 Prozent of India's workforce is made up of highly skilled workers; the corresponding proportion is at least 50 Prozent in developed countries. The Central government has increased the planned allocation for education to over Rs52,000 crore for 2011-12, which is 24 Prozent more than the previous fiscal.

Meanwhile, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, who is working on a national vocational education qualification framework, held a discussion on the same in Delhi on Monday and reiterated the need for training more people to sustain the economic growth of the country.