Govt to open 7 community colleges

The Odisha state government is planning to open seven community colleges to produce job-ready workforce and entrepreneurs in the coming academic session.

Centre plans to open around 200 such colleges in the country on a pilot basis, the state has recently made proposals to open these in the existing infrastructure of seven autonomous colleges at Berhampur, Jeypore, Bhawanipatna, Rourkela, Keonjhar, Baripada and Balasore.

These would provide flexible short-term soft skill programmes of at least four months’ duration to students of various streams.

According to Nasscom, India produces around three million graduates and postgraduates every year of whom only 25 per cent technical graduates and 15 per cent of the other graduates are employable. Community colleges will attempt to improve the pool of employable manpower.

According to the state government’s plan, each community college would require an initial capital of Rs 1.2 crore to Rs 1.5 crore to be funded by the Centre.

The government is mainly aiming at imparting soft skills like communicative English, basic management lessons, knowledge about arranging funds for starting a new venture, among others, to the undergraduate students. “This would make them employable or become entrepreneurs,” said Upendra Sahu, the deputy secretary of the higher education department involved in making the community college plan for the state.

Sources said the government is planning to involve Centurion University for the public private partnership project. The university, in discussion with colleges and local industries, will devise the curriculum most suitable to the locality concerned. (Source – The Times of India)