National Career Service (NCS) is a Government of India initiative to transform Government employment exchanges in India and bring together the job seekers, employers, career counsellors and training providers in a common platform. The goal is to provided a wide spectrum of facilities and services in fulfilling the career and employment aspirations of unemployed youths of India. Launched in July, 2015, the National Career Service is being implemented by the Ministry of Labour & Empolyment as a mission mode project. As part of the project, the National Career Service portal (www.ncs.gov.in) has been launched to provide all employment related services through a single window platform.
Background
In India, the national employment services are provided through a network of 978 Employment Exchanges and University Employment Information and Guidance Bureaus. According to the records of this network, there are around 4 crore unemployed job seekers at any given time and each year around 50 lakh new registrants are added to the registry. But, this network provides placement services to only around 4 lakh registrants annually. In addition, today’s youth seek variety of information related to education, apprenticeship, internship, vocational training, professional courses and more. The old setup of employment exchange network in not efficient enough to provide those information. Also, in recent years, there has been a rise in the cases of mismatch in demand and supply. Through employment exchanges, job seekers are not getting the right jobs or the job providers not reaching the right candidates.
During 2013, the Ministry of Labour and Employment decided to work on an IT intensive model to cater to the demands of the labour market and the unemployed youths. The Ministry also studied National Career Services of other countries. A working group was formed to examine employment related services, which provided various recommendations for transforming India’s National employment services into National Career Services through extensive and intensive use of information and communications technology (ICT). As a result, the National Career Service project was launched in July, 2015. Under this project, the existing Employment Exchanges will be repositioned as Career Centres. Besides providing employment services, the Career Centres will focus on providing a variety of related services such as career counselling, vocational guidance, information on skill development courses, internship, apprenticeship, etc. Initially Rs 150 crore was sanctioned for the project.
The key stakeholders of NCS are: unemployed candidates seeking jobs or career counselling; candidates seeking vocational or occupational guidance; illiterate, under-privileged sections of society, blue-collar workers seeking placements and guidance; person with different abilities (PWDs), ex-servicemen, veterans or senior citizens, etc. and employers looking for suitable candidates.
Objective of National Career Service
The main objectives of the National Career Service include supporting the job seekers with improved quality of information; making services easily available and increasing the number of placements through Employment Exchanges. Some of the detailed objectives are:
- Easy accessibility of employment services to all stakeholders.
- Enhancing employability of the work force by providing right information, connecting them with training institutions and providing career counselling services.
- Providing employment counselling, assessment of capabilities and vocational guidance services to job seekers.
- Providing all information related to jobs, job market, job profiles, career path and employers at a single point.
- Providing self-help assessment tools to help the workforce in their career planning.
- Improve the interface with industry and employers through regular interactions.
Components of National Career Service:
Key components of the National Career Service mission.
- National career service portal: The web portal will works as a single window platform for all employment and career related needs of the youth. URL is www.ncs.gov.in.
- Call Center: Call centers in English and 7 regional languages to assist job seekers, employers, counsellors, trainers etc. Call center number is: 1800-425-1514.
- Career Counsellors Content: Updated repository of various career options and employment opportunities. So, that Employment Exchange Officers can work effectively as career counsellors.
- Model Career Centres: Employment exchanges will be transformed into career centres and new career centers will be established at institutions, universities etc.
- Last Mile Employability Programme: Training for fresh graduates and/or drop outs who needs trainings, specially on soft skills.
References:
- National Career Service Portal, India. www.ncs.gov.in
- Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt of India. www.labour.gov.in