An IAS officer serving in Meghalaya has been selected for the second phase of Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship, a two-year long fellowship conceived to create opportunity for young, dynamic individuals to contribute to enhancing skill development at the grassroots.
East Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Swapnil Tembe along with officers from five other states was selected for this fellowship.
Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal, MSDE Joint Secretary Anuradha Vemuri, Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (KSDC) Mission Director Ashwin Gowda, Vijayapura District Collector P Sunil Kumar, and Prof. Arnab Mukherji from IIM Bangalore were the others selected for the fellowship.
The two-year fellowship seeks to combine classroom sessions by academic partner IIMs with an intensive field immersion at the district level to create credible plans and identify barriers in raising employment, economic output, and promote livelihoods in rural areas.
Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship is aimed at strengthening the skill training delivery mechanism in the country including Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP), a World Bank loan assisted programme.
SANKALP engages with District Skill Committees (DSCs) to effectively reduce the mismatch between the supply and demand of skilled manpower in the country, thereby creating decent opportunities for the youth to work and earn.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship programme under SANKALP was designed to provide a cadre of professionals at District level who not only know about governance and public policy in general but vocational education too.
The fellowship is a unique blend of academic and work-based training handled at the IIM campus and the districts, respectively.
The academic module familiarises the fellows with concepts from management, development economics, public policy and the district skills ecosystem.
During the fieldwork, the fellows will work within the district with DSC officials on skilling challenges facing the district. Along with the DSC officials, they shall put together District Skill Development Plans (DSDPs) and implement road maps. The fellows will assist the districts on evidence-based planning and management of skilling in the districts.
Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship Phase-I (Pilot) was launched with IIM Bangalore as academic partner and 69 are fellows currently deployed in 69 districts across six states.
MGNF Phase-II (National Roll Out) was launched on October 25 with 661 fellows who will be deployed across all districts of the country.
Eight more IIMs have been on board taking the total to nine IIMs (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jammu, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Nagpur, Ranchi, Udaipur and Visakhapatnam).
