Why in news?

• The Union cabinet on has approved the merger of the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA).
• The merger is aimed to consolidate fragmented regulatory structures and improve the outcome of the Skill India mission.

National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET):

•  The National Council for Vocational Education and Training will regulate the functioning of entities engaged in vocational education and training, both long-term and short-term, and establish minimum standards for the functioning of such entities.
• The primary functions of NCVET will include recognition and regulation, assessment, approval of qualifications developed by different bodies and industry governed sector skill councils.
• The merger would bring in accountability in skill sector that caters to nearly 15 million students at any given time.
•  This reform will ultimately increase credibility of the skill sector and encourage greater private investment.

NCVT and NSDA:

• The NCVT was a regulator and assessment body of the long-term skill education space comprising more than 13,000 industrial training institutions.
•  While the NSDA was policy formulating bodies of the skill development ministry helping it devise training and industry collaboration policy for the Skill India mission.
• The NCVT had been in existence for more than four decades as part of the directorate general of training, while the NSDA was a relatively new body that came into force in 2013.