Union Minister of State for Education, Dr Subhas Sarkar emphasized on creating a future-ready workforce through skilling, reskilling and upskilling as well as collaborative reforms in the education sector.

Addressing the third Education Working Group meeting under G20 here on Wednesday on ‘Building Capacities for Lifelong Learning in the context of Future of Work’ , the Union Minister said the need for platforms like G20 lies in exchanging expertise, experiences and best practices.

The meeting is a continuation of the previous two working group meetings held in Chennai and Amritsar earlier, aimed at discussing and implementing innovative ideas and policies to globally transform the education sector.

Over 60 delegates from G20 member countries, invitee countries and International Organisation countries are participating in the three day meeting.

He emphasized the value of skill education and informed about the many skilling initiatives offered by the government in order to create a future-ready workforce.

The seminar today builds on the deliberations held in the last two webinars on the evolving world of work, and the importance of foundational skills and lifelong learning, he said.

It aims to strengthen human and institutional capacity for the delivery of ‘future skills’ for a `future-ready’ workforce through upskilling, re-skilling and lifelong learning while ensuring inclusivity.

He highlighted the New Education Policy, 2020 and said the government is rethinking the ways deployed to develop, assess and recognize skills, primarily through the integration of academic and vocational education.

Dr. Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Chairperson of the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET), made a presentation including inputs from G20 countries and international organizations.

K. Sanjay Murthy, Secretary, the Ministry of Education, and Dr. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, of the National Educational Technological Forum (NETF), both spoke at the seminar by setting the context and sharing insights on building a digital ecosystem for lifelong learning, respectively.

The seminar included three panel discussions, with panelists from Brazil, Spain, UAE, Singapore, Russia, South Africa, Mauritius, OECD, UNICEF, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The panel discussion themes were: Building an agile response to the needs of labor markets and institutional capacity building in the context future of work: enabling high quality technical and vocational education, creating pathways between higher and vocational education and equipping children with a range of future skills to set them on the course of lifelong learning.

Delegates also attended the G20 Future of Work Exhibition where they saw cutting-edge technology and innovative ideas that are changing the way we work and learn.