New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS): With the government identifying skills as an important component in employability, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that moves are afoot to stimulate the education sector with a new education policy.

Presenting the Union Budget, her second one since the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed back to power, Sitharaman announced a number of initiatives in the education and higher education sectors.

Under the plans to improve employability, about 150 higher educational institutions will offer apprenticeship embedded degree/diploma courses by March 2021.

The government also proposes to start a programme whereby urban local bodies across the country would provide internship opportunities to fresh engineers for a period upto one year.

To provide quality education to students of deprived sections of society as well as those who do not have access to higher education, the government intends to start degree level full-fledged online education programme, to be offered only by top 100 ranked institutions.

Also on the anvil are a National Police University, and a National Forensic Science University in the domain of policing science, forensic science, and cyber-forensics.

To establish India as a preferred destination in higher education, the government is also set to introduce a 'Study in India' programme and Ind-SAT exam to be held in Asia and Africa.

"It shall be used for benchmarking foreign candidates who receive scholarships for studying in Indian higher education centres," the minister said in her presentation.