PIB Delhi – National Apprentices Training Scheme (NATS) is implemented through Boards of Apprenticeship/Practical Training located at Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur & Kolkata, which are autonomous organizations under the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education. The scheme fulfills the gaps in the practical training of fresh graduate engineers, diploma holders in engineering and also of the non-engineering degree students so as to make them industry/establishment ready. It further aims to improve their quality of industry/commercial exposure and develop the technical human resource for the industries and establishments.
The objectives of the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) are:
- to promote skill development and to bridge the gaps in providing the skill to the students who do not acquire during their study in colleges and thus to make them more employable; and
- to facilitate the employers to train disciplined and skilled manpower to meet the required human resources in the emerging areas.
As per third party evaluation of the scheme by National Institute of Labour Economics Research & Development (NILERD) conducted in 2019, an autonomous organization under NITI Aayog, the post apprenticeship employment percentage under NATS is around 80% of total engagement.The employability percentage and details of students enrolled under NAT scheme is detailed below:
| Year | Students enrolled | Employment data collected | % data collected | % employment out of data collected | Remarks |
| 2017-18 | 1,30,260 | * | * | 67% | |
| 2018-19 | 1,29,459 | * | * | 79% | |
| 2019-20 | 1,08,843 | 74,970 | 68.9% | 77% | Data collected from NATS Portal. |
| 2020-21 | 1,00,807 | 46,798 | 46.4% | 95% |
Note- * Assessed by National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (NILERD) an autonomous body of NITI Aayog. The scope of NATS has also been expanded to include students from Humanities, Science and Commerce besides students from engineering stream. The scheme envisages training of about 8.57 lakhs students during next five i.e. from 01.04.2021 to 31.03.2026 for which the outlay of the scheme has also been enhanced to Rs.3,054 crores. The information was given by the Minister of State for Education, Annpurna Devi in a written reply in the LokSabha today.
