In order to help churn out trained work force, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) on Monday, August 18. The core idea is to train students with requisite employability skills.

The MoU was signed by Chandrajeet Banerjee, the CII director general and Laxman, the registrar of IGNOU. The signing was done in the presence of Labour Secretary Sudha Pillai as well as IGNOU Vice Chancellor VN Rajasekharan Pillai.

Speaking on this matter, Rajasekharan Pillai informed that a study was organized which showed that only five per cent of the work force in India was trained for the job. He pointed out that this percentage is very low as compared to the developed markets like Korea, the US and the UK, where the figure stood at 80 per cent.

Pillai thereafter explained that if the percentage of trained work force in India is increased to even 10 per cent, then this will result in doubling the productivity. This CII and IGNOU collaboration will offer programmes in the areas of security and fire safety, construction, travel and tourism, personality development and soft skills and spoken English.