CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 25 of 120

Correct — C, 1, 2 and 3. Every item in the list is a named sub-mission of the National Skill Development Mission. The Union Cabinet cleared the Mission on 1 July 2015 and it was launched a fortnight later, on 15 July 2015, World Youth Skills Day. It was never designed as a single scheme. It is a frame of seven sub-missions — Institutional Training, Infrastructure, Convergence, Trainers, Overseas Employment, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Leveraging Public Infrastructure — each of which owns one bottleneck in the skilling system. Institutional Training is the long-course side, the industrial training institutes and polytechnics under the Directorate General of Training. Overseas Employment is on the list because a large share of Indian workers are skilled for jobs abroad, and a certificate is worth nothing at a Gulf or East Asian worksite unless it maps onto the standard that employer recognises; the sub-mission exists to align Indian qualifications with foreign demand. Leveraging Public Infrastructure is the thriftiest of the seven — schools, colleges and government training centres already stand, and stand empty for much of the day, so the Mission asks that those rooms and workshops be used for skilling in their idle hours rather than new buildings be raised. All three of the paper's items belong, so the code that keeps all three is the answer.

• (a)1 only — Keeps the safest-looking item and drops the other two. Institutional training is indeed a sub-mission, but so are overseas employment and the leveraging of public infrastructure — dropping them costs the mark.
• (b)2 only — Picks overseas employment alone, which is odd in both directions: it is a real sub-mission, and it is the least obvious of the three, so a candidate who recognises it has no reason to reject institutional training.
• (d)2 and 3 only — Throws out institutional training, the most central sub-mission of the seven. The Mission's whole long-course apparatus — the ITIs and the Directorate General of Training — sits under it.

The National Skill Development Mission is the umbrella under which India's skilling effort was reorganised in 2015, together with the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Its nodal ministry is the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, created in 2014. Governance is three-tier: a Governing Council chaired by the Prime Minister sets direction, a Steering Committee reviews, and a Mission Directorate executes with support from the National Skill Development Agency, the National Skill Development Corporation and the Directorate General of Training.

Items in a mission-component question are usually rejected for the wrong reason — a candidate assumes a component must belong to some other ministry. Overseas employment feels like foreign-office work, and public infrastructure feels like a public-works matter, so both get struck out. The Mission is deliberately wider than that: it was written to pull scattered skilling activity across ministries and states into one frame, which is why one of its own seven sub-missions is simply called Convergence. Note on sourcing: the ministry's own web copy of the Mission document would not open for checking while this card was written, so the four sub-missions the paper does not name are given here as the Mission document lists them rather than as separately confirmed. The launch dates and the three-tier structure are the parts to lean on.

• The National Skill Development Mission was approved by the Union Cabinet on 1 July 2015 and launched on 15 July 2015, which is World Youth Skills Day.
• It is organised into seven sub-missions: Institutional Training, Infrastructure, Convergence, Trainers, Overseas Employment, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Leveraging Public Infrastructure.
• Its governance runs Governing Council, Steering Committee and Mission Directorate, with the Prime Minister chairing the Governing Council.
• The Mission Directorate is supported by the National Skill Development Agency, the National Skill Development Corporation and the Directorate General of Training.
• The National Skill Development Agency named in the 2015 document no longer exists separately — it was merged with the National Council for Vocational Training on 10 October 2018 to form the National Council for Vocational Education and Training, the sector's regulator.

• Assuming overseas employment must belong to the foreign office and therefore cannot be a skilling sub-mission.
• Confusing the National Skill Development Mission with the National Skill Development Corporation — the second is one of the bodies that supports the first.
• Reading 'leveraging of public infrastructure' as a plan to build new infrastructure; the idea is to use buildings that already stand.

Either as a list of components to be sorted into the Mission or out of it, or as a straight recall of the launch year and the nodal ministry.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Skill Development Mission was launched on which one of the following dates?

  • (a)2 October 2014
  • (b)15 July 2015
  • (c)1 April 2016
  • (d)26 January 2017

  Answer(b) 15 July 2015 — the Union Cabinet approved the Mission on 1 July 2015 and it was launched a fortnight later, on World Youth Skills Day.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following bodies supports the Mission Directorate of the National Skill Development Mission?

  • (a)University Grants Commission
  • (b)Central Board of Secondary Education
  • (c)National Skill Development Corporation
  • (d)Indian Council of Agricultural Research

  Answer(c) National Skill Development Corporation — the Mission Directorate works with the NSDC, the National Skill Development Agency and the Directorate General of Training.