CBSE, UNICEF collaborate to equip school students with 21st century skills

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), UNICEF and YuWaah are collaborating to make twenty-first century skills accessible to school students, according to officials. Generation Unlimited or YuWaah, supported by UNICEF, is a platform to bring young people together with the private sector, governments, and international and local organisations to turn them into active and engaged citizens.

In continuation of the ongoing collaborations on life skills, CBSE, UNICEF and YuWaah will work together on career guidance as well as enabling access and engagement of students in volunteering opportunities. A statement of intent was signed to mutually agree on the areas of collaboration and key milestones therein, the officials said.

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According to the officials, the meeting also marked agreement on the roll-out of the Passport to Earning (P2E) initiative for CBSE students, wherein they shall be upskilled with key 21st century skills mapped to CBSE's employability skills curriculum. Based on the pilot, the initiative will be scaled to reach all students, including scaling teacher training and capacity building to enable the same. The P2E initiative is part of a multi-stakeholder, global partnership between UNICEF, Generation Unlimited, Microsoft and Accenture. Capgemini is a key partner in enabling the scaling of this e-learning solution in India.

"The new National Education Policy (NEP) has laid a lot of stress on moving from rote learning to skilling. It also recommends instilling skills in students, right from the school level. Passport to Earning is one of the initiatives supported by the Board towards achieving this goal. In time, we may explore integrating P2E with the Skill Hubs Initiative of the Centre government," CBSE chairperson Nidhi Chibber said.

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According to Yasumasa Kimura, UNICEF Representative in India, CBSE is one of the most important stakeholders to deliver 21st century skills to young people at scale. "We are privileged to reaffirm our commitment to young people's bright future with this national-level partnership. We look forward to working together to empower India's young people to thrive in school, work, and life,” he said.