Chennai: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will help upgrade the skills of 25,000 school dropouts in the southern states to make them employable, said a senior CII official here on Saturday.

The CII would adopt 92 industrial training institutes (ITIs) in the four states for upgradation through public-private partnership (PPP) scheme and train 5,000 faculty members on 'soft skills' through industry-university consortium, said CII-southern region chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, who is also the chairman and managing director of Infotech Enterprises Ltd.

CII would also work for the introduction of 'soft skills', a choice based credit system, in 15 universities in Tamil Nadu, and set up a skills academy in Chennai, he told reporters.

The CII would enhance the employability of 10,000 socially disadvantaged students under its "affirmative action" initiatives. It would also take steps to provide education to industry workers.

Reddy said CII would focus on a 10-point agenda and implement the key recommendations of Vision 2025 document towards making "the southern region a front-runner in socio-economic development".

Reddy also announced that the CII would kickstart a project for competency assessment of colleges in Tamil Nadu. It will launch 'college excellence clusters' to enhance quality of education and conduct training programme for faculty members.

"CII believes that tier II and III cities such as Hosur, Erode, Vizag, Vijayawada, Belgaum and Kottayam are the new destination for investments and the growth engines of economy," Reddy said.

He added that the industry body would speed up other infrastructure development projects like road connectivity and airport expansions in the south. IANS