Identified the aptitudes, interests and personality facets that would suit each course and the specific combination of these components, the job roles according to the descriptions provided by the National Occupational Standards of National Skill Development Corporation( NSDC) were analyzed. The expert team came up with a detailed chart comprising the list of courses and the corresponding combination of aptitudes, interests and personality facets that go along.
A total of 6 aptitudes including verbal, numerical, logical, clerical, mechanical and Spatial, 8 interests- scientific / investigative, social, aesthetic, mechanical, naturalistic, conventional, enterprising and economic and 17 personality facets, based on the Big Five Personality Factors were identified as matching with these courses.
For each course, the specific aptitudes, interests and personality facets were ranked according to the relevance each component had to the job courses. For each course, a profile comprising of aptitudes, interests and personality facets was created. Each of the components of aptitudes, interest and personality were allotted weights based on the relevance with job descriptions. This was done for all the courses.
For external validation of the profiles prepared by the expert team, a workshop was organized with the Sector Heads and Sector PMs of ASAP who are handling the Skill courses for the past few years. The rationale behind the test construction was explained to them and the components of aptitudes, interests and personality facets were introduced. They mapped each course according to the importance of various aptitudes, interests and personality facets and prepared profiles suited for each course. This served as an external validation for the profiles prepared by the team. The expert team compared the profiles created by them and the sector heads. This helped them arrive at the final matrix of aptitude, interest and personality combination for each course. Corresponding weights were assigned to each component based on the profiles that were created.
A mock test was conducted at SDC Kamaleswaram, Trivandrum. Feedback was collected from all the students through a face to face interview and through forms. Based on the feedback suggestions were given to the IT team to make necessary modifications in the Aptitude test desktop application regarding timings of each section, changing the format of displaying the instructions and questions in the application, corrections in the uploaded questions. Aptitude tests were organized by ASAP in a semi-online mode through a desktop application, developed in JAVA SWING technology that uses SQLite as back-end database, for finding out student aptitude in different skill sectors. There were separate versions of the application for LINUX and WINDOWS operating systems which supports both 32 and 64 bit processor architecture. Aptitude test was conducted in the SDCs as well as in some of the ASAP institutions. The test was conducted during the last weeks of December 2015 and completed by mid of January 2016. Score cards were given to students who appeared for the test.
Allotment of Skill Bouquet To SDC, Skill Orientation & Skill Allotment
Once the SDC Skill bouquet was identified, Skill Orientation Programmes were conducted in all the 110 SDCs across the State for imparting awareness to the students during the last days of January 2016. During the skill orientations, skill brochures which was designed both in English and Malayalam was distributed to the students. The skill brochures included industry and course highlights, desirable personal traits of the trainee, career options, regarding internship and certification, eligibility criteria and the course fee. During the skill orientations course wise rank list was published to the students which indicates the chances of allotment to the skill courses. The skill allotment day was also intimated to the first thirty students in each course rank list, as they were offered sure seats to those courses.
ANNUAL REPORT PAGE 50