Scheme for Providing Soft Skill Training Courses to Students Studying in State Colleges

What is the soft skills training scheme for state college students?

The Scheme for Providing Soft Skill Training Courses to Students Studying in State Colleges is an initiative of the Department of Higher Education, Government of Uttarakhand. According to the scheme details, it aims to enhance the soft skills of students studying in state government degree colleges so that they are more employable when they graduate. The training is provided free of cost and delivered through experienced training partners such as Mahindra Pride Classroom and the Naandi Foundation.

Many students in Uttarakhand's government degree colleges are strong on academic subject knowledge but have had little exposure to the communication, confidence and interview skills that employers look for. This scheme is designed to close that gap. Rather than a cash benefit, the benefit here is training; structured soft-skills coursework organised through the college.

What does the training cover?

While the exact curriculum is set with the training partner, soft-skills programmes of this kind focus on employability skills, including:

• Spoken and written communication, including English communication.
• Personality development and confidence building.
• Interview preparation and job-readiness, such as how to present yourself and behave in a workplace.
• Teamwork and workplace behaviour.

The goal is to make a graduate from a state college competitive against candidates from private institutions who often get such training built into their courses.

What Mahindra Pride Classroom actually delivers

Because the scheme relies on partners, it is worth knowing what those partners run. Mahindra Pride Classroom is the corporate social responsibility livelihood programme of the Mahindra group, implemented on the ground by the Naandi Foundation. Across the country it delivers between 40 and 120 hours of training to final-year students in polytechnics, ITIs and arts and science colleges. Its published modules cover spoken English, life skills, aptitude, interview preparedness, group discussion and digital literacy, the exact gap this Uttarakhand scheme is trying to close for state-college students. In other words, a student joining under this scheme is typically enrolling in a structured multi-day programme, not a single guest lecture, and the emphasis falls on final-year students who are about to enter the job market.

Numbers matter here: a course of 40 to 120 hours is a real time commitment spread across several days or weeks, so a student who signs up should plan to attend the full batch. Partial attendance defeats the purpose, and completion is usually what earns the certificate.

Why final-year students are the priority

The training is pitched at students close to graduation for a simple reason. It is meant to convert into a job. Spoken English and interview practice are most useful in the months before campus placements and job interviews, so colleges typically prioritise final-year and pre-final-year students when a batch has limited seats. A first or second-year student who is interested should still register their interest with the placement cell, but should expect final-year students to be enrolled first.

Who is eligible for the soft skills training scheme?

A student can join if:

• The student is enrolled in a Uttarakhand government or state degree college.

A student cannot join if:

• The student is not enrolled in a Uttarakhand government / state college, the scheme is limited to the state's own higher-education institutions.

The scheme is open to college students as a group; individual selection into a batch is handled by the college with the training partner.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the soft skills training

1. Ask your government degree college whether a soft-skills training batch is being organised under the Higher Education Department scheme.
2. Register your interest with the college — typically the placement cell, a nodal teacher, or the office coordinating the training.
3. Provide your college enrolment or student ID so the college can confirm your eligibility.
4. Join the training batch organised with the partner such as Mahindra Pride Classroom or the Naandi Foundation, and attend the sessions.

Because the scheme is delivered institution by institution, the college is the single point of entry; there is no separate individual online application for the student.

How to check whether a batch is running and what it costs you

There is no statewide portal that shows batch schedules, so the reliable way to check is to ask two people at your own college: the placement cell and any nodal teacher coordinating skill programmes. They will know whether a Mahindra Pride Classroom or Naandi Foundation batch is planned for the session, how many seats it carries, and who is being prioritised. On cost, the answer is simple and worth confirming directly: the training is free to the student because it is funded as a state Higher Education initiative delivered through a corporate-CSR partner. No student should be asked to pay a fee, buy material, or pay an agent to be enrolled; if anyone asks for money, that is a red flag, not part of the scheme. Keep your college enrolment number or student ID handy, since that is the one document the college needs to confirm you belong to a state institution before it adds you to a batch.

Why the college is the route, not an individual form

This scheme is an institution-delivered training programme, not a personal cash benefit. The state funds and arranges the training, the partner organisation delivers it, and the college hosts and enrols students into batches. That is why a student cannot apply on a portal for a personal grant. The correct step is to enrol through the college when a batch is offered. Students should therefore keep in touch with their college placement cell or the teacher coordinating skill programmes.

Who cannot use this scheme

Students not enrolled in a Uttarakhand government or state degree college, and members of the public who are not college students, cannot join this particular scheme. It is specifically for students already studying in the state's higher-education colleges.

Where to get help

For the current schedule and enrolment, contact your government degree college directly; its placement cell or the coordinating faculty member. Overall the scheme is run by the Department of Higher Education, Government of Uttarakhand, whose portal carries higher-education notices and updates.

A note on this guide

This is a training scheme with limited published detail, so this guide records only what can be verified: that it is a Uttarakhand Higher Education initiative offering free soft-skills training to state college students through partners such as Mahindra Pride Classroom and the Naandi Foundation, delivered via the colleges. Specific batch sizes, exact course hours, a certificate structure, and any dedicated helpline were not published on an official source at the time of writing and have been omitted rather than guessed. This scheme may serve readers best as a section within a wider Uttarakhand higher-education and skilling guide rather than as a large standalone page, given how little verifiable standalone detail exists. Students should confirm current details with their own college.