The district panchayat has decided to upgrade the Skill Development Centre under it by introducing new courses and improving the facilities there. A general council meeting of the local body presided over by its president K. Jameela here has decided to introduce a set of new courses, including the Public Service Commission-approved PGDCA, DCA and Diploma in Financial Accounting, at the centre from this academic year itself.
The centre, which more than once had won the national award for the best skill development centre in the country, has been giving vocational training in around 40 trades to candidates, including neo-literates and school drop-outs, for more than 10 years now. Centre director K. Sreedharan also had won the Mukta Vidya Ratnam national award, instituted by the National Institute of Open Schooling under the Ministry of Human Resource Development to honour the best vocational training institutes and their heads under the open school regime in the country, last year.
Qualified teachersThe general council meeting held at the district panchayat hall here has also decided to make highly qualified teachers available to the centre besides improving its infrastructural facilities to meet the new requirements. “We have also decided to conduct training programmes of the National Skill Development Council as well as training modules of the Kudumbasree micro entrepreneurship at the centre,” said Prof. Sreedharan.
He maintained that the absence of own land for the centre was standing in way of its development.
Promise of landEducation Minister P.K. Abdu Rabb, while inaugurating the anniversary celebrations of the centre two years ago, had promised to make adequate land available on long-term lease to the centre. “But nothing has materialised so far,” said Prof. Sreedhran. The meeting, which expressed concern over the indefinite delay in making adequate land available to the centre, has also come to a decision to start short-term computer courses to housewives and senior citizens at the centre.
