Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) students have been breaking down doors to gain entry into premier national colleges for the past few years. But, realising that all students may not have the capacity to get into IITs, the Society has come up with a novel scheme to improve employability in the private sector.
About 14 vocational courses have been identified in areas such as physiotherapy, electrical technician, medical lab technician, taxation, retail and hotel management, pharmacy, pre-primary school teacher, office assistantship and others for students in the 11th grade in select schools across the State.
Employment factor
“We train our children for government jobs from ninth class but we have also noticed the private sector needs skilled manpower in several areas and skills cannot be developed overnight. The new education policy, too, calls for early childhood education. We are helping students figure out what is most suitable for them,” says Society secretary R.S. Praveen Kumar.
He, however, is quick to point out that the scheme does not mean it is curtains for students who want to pursue higher education. Students are keen on higher education but since they hail from very poor families, a vocational course could help them find employment to become the breadwinner of the family, or supplant family income and pursue higher studies with an income cushion later, avers Dr. Kumar.
About 1,380 from the total 2,200 students, who had originally evinced interest, have enrolled for the courses being taken up in select institutions for now and this could be gradually expanded to all schools.
What Dr. Kumar also has in mind is the blossoming of pre-primary schools, and with right funding from agencies like the SC Corporation, some students could become entrepreneurs setting up their own schools in the process, after training.
School garages
The Society is also tying up with SETWIN (Society for Employment Promotion and Training in Twin Cities) to start ‘School Garages’ where students will be taught mobile phone technology and how to repair new-age electronic gadgets. “We are allotting a small space in every school so that more children are exposed to those technologies,” says Dr. Kumar.
Consolidation phase
The Society is currently on a consolidation phase of its available infrastructure and has been successful in recruiting 3,000 teachers within a year minus any legal tangles and the process is on to recruit 400 lecturers for the women degree colleges.
“About 20,000 first batch girls, who otherwise would have been married off, have passed from our colleges with some even gaining entry into the Tata Institute of Social Studies for the first time to pursue post graduate programmes,” he adds with a sense of pride in his voice.