Employability Excellence with College Education and Learning (EXCEL)

What is the EXCEL scheme?

Employability Excellence with College Education and Learning, universally shortened to EXCEL, is a skill development programme of the Jharkhand Skill Development Mission Society (JSDMS), which functions under the state's Higher, Technical Education and Skill Development Department. EXCEL takes employability training into university and college campuses and runs it parallel to the regular degree course, so that a student picks up job-ready skills without dropping out of, or pausing, their education.

The design point is unusual and worth stating plainly. Most government skill schemes ask a young person to leave what they are doing and attend a training centre somewhere else. EXCEL does the opposite: JSDMS sets up classrooms and labs inside the college itself and delivers training there through engaged Training Service Providers. The student's degree continues; the skilling sits on top of it.

JSDMS put the EXCEL proposal out for public suggestions in 2017 before rolling it out, inviting comments on the draft scheme. Reporting on Jharkhand's skill programmes records that more than 9,000 people have been trained through JSDMS activity in and around the districts where EXCEL and its sibling programmes operate, including Bokaro, Dhanbad, Tundi, Topchanchi, Ranchi, Chaibasa, Chandrapura, Godda, Lohardaga, Dumka and Giridih.

Key features

• Designed for 10+2 passed college students across Jharkhand.
• Delivered on the college campus, in classrooms and labs set up for the purpose.
• Runs alongside the traditional degree programme, not instead of it.
• Delivered through Training Service Providers engaged by JSDMS.
• Free of cost to the student at JSDMS-affiliated centres.
• Leads to certification and placement support.

EXCEL is one of a family of Jharkhand skill programmes. The others readers most often encounter are Saksham Jharkhand Kaushal Vikas Yojana (SJKVY) and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Kaushal Kendra (DDU-KK) network. EXCEL is the one aimed specifically at students already inside higher education.

What does EXCEL actually teach?

The core of EXCEL is employability skills rather than a single trade. JSDMS has formulated skill-based training that imparts soft skills and employability skills; English communication, computer skills and interpersonal skills: to college-going students. These are the specific gaps that show up when Jharkhand graduates sit for campus interviews with a valid degree and still do not convert an offer.

JSDMS training across its programmes also prepares candidates for defined job roles. The roles reported for its training in Jharkhand's districts include customer care executive, smartphone assembly technician, domestic solutions electrician, field technician for air conditioning, and solar panel installation technician. Which roles a particular campus offers depends on the training service provider engaged there and the labs installed.

Who can join EXCEL?

You can enrol if:

• You have passed 10+2 (higher secondary).
• You are studying at a university or college in Jharkhand where an EXCEL centre has been set up by a training service provider.
• You can attend the batch timings, which are scheduled around regular class hours.

You cannot join if:

• Your college does not host an EXCEL centre. This is the practical limit on the programme. EXCEL is delivered campus by campus, so a student at a college where no training service provider has been engaged is not eligible, though they may be able to enrol in another JSDMS programme at an affiliated training centre instead.
• You have not completed 10+2. School students below that level are outside the programme's target group.
• You are not enrolled in a participating institution; EXCEL is not open to the general public as a walk-in course, because it is embedded in the college.
• You are studying outside Jharkhand.

A student who does not qualify for EXCEL is not out of options. JSDMS runs short-term skill training at affiliated centres across the state which 10th-pass and 12th-pass candidates can join, and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Kaushal Kendra network operates on similar terms.

How to apply for EXCEL training

1. Ask your college placement cell or principal's office whether an EXCEL centre is running on your campus and which training service provider operates it. There is no separate public application portal for the programme.
2. Check the job roles and batch timings on offer at your campus, since these vary with the labs installed and the provider engaged.
3. Fill the enrolment form given by the EXCEL cell or the training service provider on campus.
4. Submit your documents to 10+2 marksheet, college enrolment proof or student ID, Aadhaar card and photographs.
5. Confirm the training is free before signing anything. JSDMS-affiliated training is delivered free of cost to the candidate, so no fee, deposit or registration charge is payable.
6. Attend the batch regularly. Attendance requirements are set by the training provider and affect eligibility for certification and assessment.
7. Sit the assessment at the end of the course and collect the certificate.
8. Use the placement support the provider offers, including campus drives and employer connects.

Students whose college does not run EXCEL can instead approach a JSDMS-affiliated training centre directly, or contact the Jharkhand Skill Development Mission Society through jsdm.jharkhand.gov.in, to find a programme they are eligible for.

What documents do I need?

What does EXCEL not provide?

This is worth stating because it is where expectations most often go wrong.

EXCEL is not a cash benefit scheme. No scholarship, allowance or lump sum is paid to the student. The value the student receives is the training itself, which the state pays for on their behalf, plus the certificate and the placement support that follow.

EXCEL also does not guarantee a job. Placement support means the training provider connects candidates to employers and organises drives; the outcome still depends on the assessment result and the employer's decision.

Finally, EXCEL is not a substitute for the degree. It runs in parallel. A student who stops attending regular classes to attend EXCEL has misunderstood the programme.

Where to get help

• College placement cell or training and placement officer — the first and usually the only point of contact for enrolment, batch timings and certification at your campus.
• Jharkhand Skill Development Mission Society, at jsdm.jharkhand.gov.in, for questions about which programmes are running, which training service providers are engaged, and complaints against a provider.
• Higher, Technical Education and Skill Development Department, Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi, for escalation.

Training at JSDMS-affiliated centres is free. If any trainer, agent or campus functionary asks a student for money for an EXCEL seat, for a certificate or for a placement, report it to JSDMS in writing.

A note on what could not be verified

EXCEL is documented far less fully than Jharkhand's larger schemes. JSDMS published the draft EXCEL proposal for public suggestion in 2017 and implements the programme through training service providers, but the department does not publish a current consolidated scheme page giving the course duration, the list of participating colleges, the batch size per campus, the per-candidate cost norm, or any stipend. Those specifics are therefore omitted from this guide rather than guessed at.

What is stated above, the programme's name and purpose, its 10+2 target group, its campus-embedded delivery model, the training service provider route, the soft-skill and employability focus, the free-of-cost training at JSDMS-affiliated centres, and the districts and job roles reported for JSDMS training, comes from JSDMS material and published reporting on the state's skill programmes. Anything beyond that should be confirmed with your college EXCEL cell or with JSDMS directly before you act on it, and figures quoted by unofficial "sarkari yojana" websites about this programme should be treated as unreliable.

How to check your application status

EXCEL does not run through a central online application portal, so there is no scheme-wide tracking number, login, or SMS status system to check. Enrolment, batch allotment, and certification are all handled at the campus level by the training service provider engaged there, which means status has to be confirmed the same way admission was arranged.

• Ask the college placement cell or EXCEL cell first. They hold the enrolment list for the batch running on that campus and can confirm whether a form has been accepted, whether the batch has started, and when the next assessment is scheduled.
• Ask the training service provider directly if the campus cell points you to them. The provider runs day-to-day attendance and assessment records, so questions about a missed class, a re-test, or a delayed certificate are usually answered faster there than through the college office.
• Contact JSDMS at jsdm.jharkhand.gov.in if the college is unresponsive, if the EXCEL cell has stopped functioning, or if you need to confirm that a provider is genuinely JSDMS-affiliated before trusting anything it tells you about your enrolment.
• Escalate to the Higher, Technical Education and Skill Development Department, Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi, only after the campus and JSDMS channels have both failed to respond, since this is a state department and not built for routine individual queries.

Because there is no digital tracking layer, keep your own paper trail: retain a copy of the filled enrolment form, a photo of your submitted documents, and any batch or roll number given at enrolment. These are what you will need to produce if a dispute comes up about whether you were actually registered for a batch.

Common reasons for rejection

EXCEL rejections happen almost entirely at the point of enrolment eligibility rather than through a formal review process, since there is no application to be scrutinised centrally. The real reasons candidates get turned away are narrower and more mechanical than a typical scheme's rejection list.

• The college has no EXCEL centre. This is the single biggest reason a student is turned away, and it has nothing to do with the student's own qualifications. If no training service provider has been engaged on that campus, there is no batch to join. The fix is not to reapply, it is to check with JSDMS at jsdm.jharkhand.gov.in for an affiliated training centre near you, since EXCEL itself cannot be requested for a campus that does not already run it.
• 10+2 not yet completed. EXCEL is built for students who have already cleared higher secondary; a candidate still in school or awaiting a 10+2 result is outside the target group at the time of enrolment. The fix is to reapply once the 10+2 result is out and you are enrolled in a participating college.
• Not enrolled in a participating institution. Because EXCEL is delivered on campus by a provider working with that specific college, a person who is not a bona fide student there, including a walk-in from outside the college, cannot be enrolled regardless of qualification. The fix is enrolment in a college that runs EXCEL, or applying to a JSDMS-affiliated training centre instead, which is open on different terms.
• Missing or unverifiable documents. Enrolment forms are rejected or held back when the 10+2 marksheet, college ID or enrolment proof, or Aadhaar card is missing, illegible, or does not match the name given on the form. The fix is straightforward: carry originals plus photocopies when you submit, and get the EXCEL cell to check the set before you leave, rather than dropping the form and finding out about a mismatch later.
• Batch capacity already filled. A campus centre trains a fixed number of students per batch depending on the lab and provider capacity, so late applicants at a popular campus can be turned away even though they meet every eligibility condition. The fix is to enrol as soon as a new batch is announced rather than after it starts, and to ask the placement cell when the next intake opens if the current one is full.
• Attendance falling short of the provider's requirement. This does not block enrolment but blocks certification, which functions as a rejection in practical terms: a student who does not meet the attendance bar set by the training provider is not allowed to sit the final assessment, so no certificate is issued even after months of training. The fix is to clarify the attendance requirement on day one and treat EXCEL sessions with the same seriousness as scheduled classes, since there is no described provision for a missed-attendance exception.
• Studying outside Jharkhand. EXCEL is a Jharkhand state programme delivered through JSDMS, so a student enrolled in a college outside the state cannot be brought in through this scheme regardless of how the eligibility criteria otherwise read. There is no workaround for this one beyond enrolling in a participating Jharkhand institution.