The Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI) and the AgriFood Skills Australia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for skills training in agriculture here on Thursday.

The ASCI CEO Dr Satender Arya and the AgriFood Skills Australia jointly signed the MoU in presence of the Australian High Commissioner to India Patrick Suckling and the CEO of the National Skills Development Corporation, Dilip Chenoy.

The MoU follow the joint commitment of the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers in October 2012 to build bilateral partnerships between skills councils in key industry areas, including telecommunications, retail, mining, media/entertainment and agriculture.

The ASCI formally set up in September 2012 as affiliate body of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). NSDC was set up consequent to the decision taken by the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development headed by Subramanian Ramadorai.

ASCI actually started functioning from January, this year and after budgetary provisions were made for the fiscal April 2013-March 2014, it struck an MoU with its Australian counterpart.

After signing the MoU Arya said : “this is the first MoU we have signed with a foreign partner. Our next agreement will be with an UK body for cooperation in occupational skills.”

Welcoming the initiative, the Australian High Commissioner to India, Patrick Suckling, said the MoU was another successful outcome of the Australia India Education Council’s (AIEC) work to expand collaboration in skills development between Australia and India.

“This partnership aims to achieve quality industry-led skills training standards in the agriculture sector. With India projected to add 12 to 15 million workers to its labour force every year over the coming decades, employability and productivity gains will be inextricably linked to quality standards,” he said.

The MOU was signed between the Agriculture Skills Council of India and AgriFood Skills Australia and will promote cooperation in creating quality occupational, training, assessment, certification, information and stakeholder engagement standards.