Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), Chennai, has plans to associate itself with the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (IECD) of Bharathidasan University for conducting Faculty Development Programmes (FDP).
Following the recent conduct of a State-level programme for coordinators of over 700 higher educational institutions, the EDI has been receiving overwhelming response from colleges by way of activating their Entrepreneurship Development Cells for providing students with the required inputs for becoming entrepreneurs through the self-employment schemes of the government.
IECD
By March, an FDP will be conducted through the IECD, R. Balakrishnan, EDI Director and Additional Chief Secretary, said on Friday while inaugurating new skill development programmes to be provided free of cost for differently abled persons at the IECD .
Differently abled persons with minimum qualification of a pass or fail in eighth standard will be benefitted from the programmes in Photocopier Technician, Office Automation, and those with a minimum pass or fail in tenth standard were enrolled into Graphics Designer course. Differently abled people being self-confident do not expect sympathy, but equal opportunity to take part in skill development programmes, Mr.Balakrishnan said, releasing the syllabus for the three programmes in the presence of Vice Chancellor K. Meena, IECD Director K.Parthasarathy, and Assistant Professor and Head, Centre for Differently Abled Persons M. Prabhavathy.
Short-term course
The chief guest also handed over certificates to senior citizens who had completed short-term course on Basic Computer with Internet, and to school dropouts and educated unemployed youth who had completed certificate courses in basic computer operations, DTP, Tally, and computer hardware and networking courses. With increased life expectancy, senior citizens require a second career to maintain their lifestyle in the context of rising costs. Knowledge of computer operations will stand them in good stead to utilise their expertise through consultancy, he said.
Presiding over, Ms.Meena said the flexible skill-development programmes offered through IECD has so far benefitted over 89,000 youth since its start during 2004-05. Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Applications, one of the recent programmes, was patronised well by school teachers, she said. Differently abled students and youth can avail themselves of the benefit of the new digital talking library, she said.
