Mr S Mahalingam, Chairman, CII National Committee on Skill Development (former CFO, TCS) and Mr Rajeev Dubey, Co-Chairman, CII National Committee on Skill Development and President (Group HR Corporate Services & After- Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board have led a 21 member business delegation to the 42nd WorldSkills Competition in Leipzig, Germany from 2-6 July 2013. The competition is popularly known as the Olympics of Skills. It has been a place for contestants to benchmark their skill competency. The Skill Olympics is a great platform for 20 trades. Organized by the Amsterdam-based not-for-profit organization WorldSkills International, WorldSkills Competition is the largest vocational skills competition globally. It takes place in a different country every two years and brings together over 1,000 young people, up to 22 years of age, from across the world to compete in a variety of skills ranging from welding to web designing. Competitors representing their countries, pitch their skills against the best of the best for gold, silver and bronze medals.
India, this year has sent 22 contestants to participate in 20 trades. The national coordination of contestants is being done by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). CII has contributed to CNC Milling, CNC Turning, Mechatronics, Welding, Electronics trades through 6 contestants. These contestants apart from being honed in skill have also gone through coaching and mentoring to prepare them for the competition.
The CII delegation will spend 3 days in Leipzig they will watch the inaugural of the Competition by German Minister of BMBF and Mayor of Leipzig. Thereafter they will observe the competition for 2 days and visit Vocational Schools and Training Institutes in Leipzig before going to Berlin. In Berlin they will meet with German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) and Knorr Bremse System for Rail Vehicles and examine their vocational training methods. They will also meet Ambassador Sujata Singh, (Indian Ambassador to Germany) and give her a brief on vocational education in India and share with her their learning.
Mr Mahalingam has said “we (CII) hope that such events-International and at home will create energy and interest in our youth for skills”. The 6 candidates selected through the CII membership are S Muthukumar GTTI, Coimbatore; Gajanan Madhukarrao Gayakwad, Tata Motors, Pune; Akash Vishwanath Chavan and Rahul Shripad Tathe, Tata Motors, Pune; Umesh Murlidhar Gore, Mahindra & Mahindra, Pune; and Omnkar Suram, MIT, Pune.
CII has a tradition of conducting the Work Skills Competition for the last 25 years. The Competitions were conducted to raise the interest of workers in themselves and their machines to enable quality production eventually. Mr Rajeev Dubey, Co-Chair of the CII National Committee on Skill Development and President (Group HR Corporate Services & After- Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board said “It is important to create a well balanced eco system for skills development. It is important for industry to have a strongly skilled workforce and this can only happen if each individual workman takes pride in his skill”. The CII delegation is comprising of Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Mahindra & Mahindra, Forbes Marshall, Punj Llyod, Tata Steel, NTTF, GOLS Academy, MTAB Engineers, Seacom Group and a team from Madhya Pradesh State Government comprising government officials, trainers and ITI students.