West Bengal Govt Adopted 3-tier Model to Strengthen Technical Education: Minister

With a focus on experience-based education and hands-on training, the West Bengal government has adopted a three-tier model of skilling with vocational training centres at panchayats, ITI institutes at blocks and a polytechnic college at every sub-division of the state, a minister said on Saturday.

Technical Education and Skill Development Minister Humayun Kabir said his department is in the process of setting up at least one polytechnic institute in every sub-division of the state. The government has identified 495 vocational training centres for upgrading and trying to converge technical education with the labour department to identify district-wise skill gap, he said.

“Realising the importance of an experience-based education and hands-on training, our department has adopted a three-tier model of skilling with vocational training centres at the panchayat level, an ITI at a block level and a polytechnic institute at the sub-divisional level,” the minister said.

Addressing the 4th Globalised Education Forum organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce, he said the government has earmarked Rs 1,285 crore for technical education and training in the current financial year. Under the “Utkarsh Bangla” scheme, 185 polytechnic colleges and 283 ITIs have already been operationalised.

“We have identified 495 vocational training centres for upgrading, trying to converge our department with the labour one for developing career counselling centres and district skill development plans to identify skill gap and introduce demand-oriented courses in every district of West Bengal,” Kabir said.

At present, there are 628 vocational training centres in the state, which are actively engaged in encouraging students to innovate and present their ideas which could be a step towards future industry-academia partnerships, the minister said. The state government also wanted to set up centres of excellence in collaboration with industry associations in segments that have high employment potential, he said. Notably, the annual target of imparting skill in the state is around 6 lakh under the institutional and non-institutional mode, he said.

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