OPA’s training plan for local unemployed youth

In a bid to disseminate the information about the MES and opportunities, OPA hosted an awareness camp on aspects of printing and packaging for the local rural unemployed youth.

 

The camp was organised on 27 April at the Police Public School in village Bharowal Kalan, about 25km away from Ludhiana. Twenty unemployed youths participated in the programme.

 

Quoting the national statistics, 63% of the school students drop out at different stages before reaching Class-X, due to various reasons, including socio-economic conditions. “These less educated students cannot afford long-term training due to higher entry qualification and cost. On the other hand with the change in technology and installation of sophisticated computerised machines, the printing and packaging industry of the region is facing acute shortage of skilled and semi skilled workforce,” said Kamal Chopra, general secretary of the association.

 

Chopra said, the region is facing acute shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workforce, as workforce from neighbouring states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have become unavailable due to developmental projects in their own states.” There is need to evolve a new frame work for skill eevelopment for the informal sector. We are encouraging the youth to get training in professions like pre-press, DTP, screen printing, post-press, binding, machine operator etc.  A student can get training in any of these modular employable skills (MES).”

 

OPA will provide such training at the Print Media Ashram free of cost. Such training will be provided on flexible delivery mechanism like part-time, weekends or full time. The training period for each of the MES is divided in hours and a student can complete these hours of training in a period of his/her choice.

 

Amarjot Arora, executive member at OPA, said, “It is not only a project for the social awareness but a concept to spread the knowledge about printing amongst the youngsters. Under the project it is decided to educate the out of school and un-employed youth about printing and to prompt them to adopt printing as a career.”

 

Project in-charge, Manish Jain, said that the OPA will create a system of training and certification which will not only recognises the skills of the trainees, but also provides education and training in a mode that suits their economic compulsions. “It will not only benefit the workforce to earn a decent living but also contribute to the national economy by better productivity of this workforce.”