India Yamaha Motor has joined hands with the Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) for affiliation of its training school course at the Yamaha Training School. Yamaha says it is the first two-wheeler OEM in India with an ASDC-approved training program for the ‘Automotive Service Technician’ category under its CSR activity.

The Yamaha Training School project was initiated a decade ago to support society in the field of education, employment and entrepreneurship. The Yamaha Training School imparts technical training to underprivileged, school dropouts and less educated youngsters including girls, at its fully equipped training centres. While this facilitates their employment in the Yamaha network, the trained students can also start their own service station by getting Yamaha’s certification as well as financial support from banks.

According to Masaki Asano, managing director, Yamaha Motor India Sales, “At present, there is a huge skills gap in the industry and a large number of youngsters are pushed towards unemployment due to lack of technical skills. This platform was envisaged to facilitate the economically weaker youngsters to obtain job-oriented technical training in two-wheeler repair and servicing that meets industry standards. With ASDC coming on board, Yamaha is hopeful of improving the lives of many people by creating job opportunities for them. ”

Ravinder Singh, senior vice-president (Strategy and Planning), Yamaha Motor India Sales, said, “The recognition comes as an added advantage to YTS students because the ASDC certificates issued to successful students are well recognised within the automobile industry in India. The 10-month course meets specific industry requirement where successful candidates are awarded with NSQF 3 and NSQF 4 certification.”

At present, Yamaha has 31 operational YTS institutions across India and six more are in the pipeline. In 2017, Yamaha plans to open 15 new Yamaha Training Schools, expanding the training network to 52 by the end of the year.