The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $85 million loan on 03.12.2018 to improve the skill development eco-system in Odisha and establish an advanced skill training center, the World Skill Center (WSC), in the state capital Bhubaneswar.

The signatories to the Odisha Skill Development Project were ShriSameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary (Fund Bank and ADB), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, who signed on behalf of the Government of India, and Mr Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission, who signed for ADB.

“The project will improve the quality of the State’s TVET programs by making them relevant to industry and demand driven, and will impart advanced occupation-ready skills training aligned with international standards. It would also complement the efforts to target the employment needs of the emerging sectors in India and globally,” said Shri. Khare after signing the loan agreement.

“The project will engage Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES), Singapore, to support Odisha Skill Development Authority in setting-up and operationalizing WSC which would offer internationally bench marked advanced training programs for the working age population of Odisha.” said Mr. Yokoyama.

The project will help over 150,000 people learn skills in priority sectors, including manufacturing, construction and services for formal employment.WSC will deliver eight training courses for 13,000 full-time students, provide training for 5,000 teachers, and train 1,000 assessors. It will improve the overall eco-system of skill development in Odisha by providing integrated services through an entrepreneurship incubation center, a career counseling and placement center, a curriculum design and development center, and education technology deployment center. These important functions of WSC will support a network of Government ITIs and develop skills and capacity of polytechnics, college of engineering, and other private skilling centers.

ADB will also administer a $2 million technical assistance grant from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, financed by the Government of Japan that will support capacity development activities under the project

Development loan for skill development to establish an advanced training centre and strengthen demand driven vocational programs. A development loan funds a state skill development project to establish and operationalize the World Skill Center (WSC) delivering internationally benchmarked, occupation ready training and strengthening TVET across public and private providers. The project supports demand driven course alignment with industry, scaling training for students, teachers and assessors, and integrated functions such as entrepreneurship incubation, career counselling, curriculum design and education technology, with complementary donor technical assistance for capacity development.