Sibal calls for reform in polytechnic institutes

Mumbai, June 5 (ANI): Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal has called for reforms in polytechnic institutes to prepare the country for double-digit growth.

Talking to media on the sidelines of the second national convention on technical education here, Sibal highlighted the lack of faculty as one of core issues plaguing the polytechnic institutes.

"Maharashtra will lead action, will lead the way, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, are also well on course, except that we need to change the way polytechnics function and, we need a new framework for this enterprise. One of the biggest problems we have is faculty; we don't have enough faculty. So, we need to bring industry into the picture. We need to second industry into the polytechnics system, we need faculty to go to industry and get trained. We need industry to participate in polytechnic," said Sibal.

"India aspires to have 500 million skilled workers and 250 million graduates, and unless we do that, we will not be able to achieve double digit growth. That is the fundamental objective of the exercise," Sibal added.

He further raised the importance of strengthening the polytechnic institutes other than working on the mindset of students opting for the field.

"There is lots wrong and we admit it in the way our polytechnics are functioning. There are lot of things that are right also but we need to prepare for the 21st century. So we need a whole change of curriculum in the polytechnics, we need to work with industry to ensure that when people move out of polytechnics they get employment. Many of them are not employable; a lot of people who move into the polytechnic system think that it is a gateway to the university system. So we need actually to incentivise them to ensure that if they want a job they can get a decent dignified job in industry so we need to change the mindset of people we need to change of students," said Sibal.

He further highlighted the need to engage rural youth, who form a massive part of the country's unemployed people.

"We also must make sure that there are different strategies for different parts of the country our rural youth need to be empowered through training and skill development, that strategy has to be different because there are not enough industries in the rural sector. So we have to look at agriculture we have to look at other small scale sector to empower our rural youth," said Sibal. (ANI)