Keywords: Education, Skills enhancement
The National Skills Development Programme is an innovative intermediation between enterprises and training institutions aiming to provide technical training for school leavers/dropouts, aged between 16-35. The Human Resource Development Council, Mauritius has since its inception developed a number of programmes for skilling, re-skilling and up-skilling of those who are already in employment as well as for the unemployed. There was a pressing need for an innovative mechanism to create an interface between the employers, education and training providers and the unemployed youth, and that is novel enough to also simultaneously tackle the above-mentioned issues.
This innovative mechanism was announced in the national budget 2016/2017 and its implementation made such an impact that the Government decided to renew for subsequent years. Since implementation 183 programmes have been run across 14 economic sectors. 5764 have started training, 3342 completed training and 2488 were employed. Unemployed youths are getting demand-led, tailor-made training with on-the-job experience and employment opportunity with the participating employer after successful completion of the programme.