New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS): With the objective of bridging the skill gap and to provide trained manpower to the various emerging service sectors in India, the government Tuesday launched a skill assessment framework scheme.

Skill Assessment Matrix for Vocational Advancement of Youth (SAMVAY) was launched on the occasion of National Education Day, which also marked the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India's first education minister.

The scheme was launched in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani, Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla and Ministers of State for HRD Upendra Kushwaha and Ram Shankar Katheria, among others.

Irani said the scheme is based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of creating a framework to help those students who left the education system because of various reasons to get back into the system.

The credit framework will allow vertical and lateral mobility within the vocational education system and between the current education systems.

"The University Grants Commission (UGC) in its meeting took a decision on how various central universities can practise choice-based credit transfer, and I hope all our universities will implement this system in the next academic year so that all our students can seamlessly study from one university to another," she said at the launch.

The objective of the framework is to "strive towards development of skilled manpower for diversified sectors through short-term, structured job oriented courses", "prepare the youth for a vocation of their choice" and also "reduce unemployment by supplying world-class skilled manpower".

The framework defines the rules for credit allotment and follows the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF).