Jammu Tawi, Mar 10: Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, Rohit Kansal presided over the ongoing Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship academic module of Sankalp at Hotel Asia on Thursday.
The 12-days programme, from March 7 to March 19, has been conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, IIM Jammu.
MGN Fellowship is a two-year programme which combines classroom sessions at IIM with an intensive field immersion at the district level to strengthen the district skill administration and the District Skill Committees (DSCs).
Speaking at the occasion, the Principal Secretary underlined the need to reap benefits of demographic dividend of India in the form its vast young population. He stressed on the need to successfully convert it into a talented workforce through modern education.
Elaborating education sector, the Principal Secretary said that the sector needs to be updated to be more gainful and employment oriented. ‘Reorientation of our education system towards skill development is the need of the hour. We need to prepare better skilled workforce through education', he said.
The Principal Secretary called for aligning skill and education being imparted by universities with workplace opportunities of the future. He said that the system need to upgrade itself to cater to the upcoming Industry 4.0 trends.
Rohit Kansal shared his ideas on a plethora of subjects, including doubling of farmers income, efficient delivery of public services and social welfare schemes etc. He called upon the fellows to act as crusaders of change and give recommendations to government for institutionalisation of their novel initiatives. He suggested that the fellows take inputs from local stakeholders while proposing any development for the latter.
The Principal Secretary also shared lessons from the success of Back to Village programmes and hailed its grounds-up approach.
IIM faculty would teach course content under each course module that is consistent with 40 contact days; along with off-campus mentoring, field experience, and workshops that should form an integral part of the learning. Fellows from J&K, West Bengal, Ladakh, Chandigarh and Puducherry are participating in the programme.
The programme has been designed by the initiative of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Government of India, and implemented in collaboration with State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs).
Dr. Muqbil Burhan, Co-Program Director, MGNF was also present at the occasion.
