The Government of India, Ministry of Labour & Employment launched a Modular Employable Skills (MES) under Skill Development Initiative (SDI) Scheme through Directorate General of Employment & Training in 2007. Under this scheme, training to school dropouts who work as child labourers and existing workers specially in the unorganised sector are to be trained for employable skills. It is a hurting fact that while India has large young population, only 5 percent of the Indian labour force in the age group of 20-24 years has obtained vocational skills through formal means whereas the percentage in industrialized countries varies between 60 percent and 96 percent. Only about 2.5 million vocational training seats are available in the country whereas about 12.8 million persons enter the labour market every year. Even out of these training places, very few are available for early school dropouts. This signifies that a large number of school drop outs do not have access to skill development for improving their employability. The educational entry requirements and long duration of courses of the formal training system are some of the impediments for a person of low educational attainment to acquire skills for his livelihood.
Link : http://dget.gov.in/content/innerpage/introduction-sdis.php