New Delhi: Keeping in line with the thrust on apprenticeship in the National Education Policy 2020, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday gave approval for stipendiary support of Rs. 3,054 crore to apprentices who undergo apprenticeship training under the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) of the Ministry of Education for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26.
Approximately 9 lakh apprentices will be trained by industry and commercial organisations. NATS, a Government of India scheme has been demonstrated to enhance the employability of students who have successfully completed the apprenticeship training, according to a report in The Indian Express.
Apprentices who have completed graduate and diploma programmes in Engineering, Humanities, Science and Commerce will be given a stipend of Rs.9,000 and Rs.8,000 per month respectively.
The Government has approved an expenditure of more than Rs. 3,000 crore during the next five years, which is about 4.5 times the expenditure made during the previous 5 years.
NATS fact file
- The scope of NATS has further been expanded to include students from Humanities, Science and Commerce besides students from the engineering stream.
- It aims to raise the standards of skill level by strengthening the skill ecosystem.
- It will provide employment to approximately 7 lakh youths in the next five years.
- It will provide apprenticeships in emerging areas under ‘Production Linked Incentive’ (PLI) such as mobile manufacturing, medical devices manufacturing, pharma sector, electronics/technology product and automobile sector etc.
- The scheme will also be preparing skilled manpower for connectivity/logistics industry sectors, identified under GatiShakti.