In a move aimed at imparting innovative spirit and encouraging creativity and entrepreneurship among students, the State-owned KITCO Ltd has proposed to launch a novel project, Creativity and Innovation Lab@School, in government schools across the State.
A proposal to integrate the project with the school academic programme will be placed before the Education Minister shortly. KITCO claims this programme to be a first of its kind at school-level and targets to cover all government schools in three years.
A cluster of five schools would be formed in each district with one school to be selected as the host school. Eighteen students from the host school and eight students each from the other member schools would benefit from the programme thus taking the total number of beneficiaries across the State to 700 in the first year.
The beneficiaries would be chosen from among students of standards 7, 8 and 9 through a screening process.
Students who had participated in science exhibitions, quiz, etc., would get preference.
“The programme will help students plan their higher education and select their area of interest in an informed manner rather than on peer or parental pressure,” Cyriac Davies, managing director of KITCO, told The Hindu.
While the Kerala Technology University would focus on developing entrepreneurship among engineering students, this programme may act as an ideation phase.
Advisory board
It would be monitored by a cluster-level advisory board comprising the principal, teacher coordinator, student convener, Parent Teacher Association member, an entrepreneur and a KITCO representative.
The success of the programme at Vidyodaya School, Thevakkal, where it was run during the last academic year, inspired KITCO to develop a State-wide proposal.
The programme involves six mentoring classes and two two-day workshops to be held on Saturdays and vacations respectively. Sessions would be held by successful start-ups and entrepreneurs.
A State-wide contest among clusters would be held for drawing top five innovative ideas from each cluster. Region-wise and State-level innovative and creativity workshops would also be held.
By the time the project runs its course in three years, the participating schools would have physical labs for innovative and creative activities and exercises.
The programme, to be led by experts from the industry, successful entrepreneurs and faculties from leading management and design institutions, may cost Rs.70 lakh a year at the rate of Rs.5 lakh per cluster. This may either be funded jointly by the government and the industry or by the industry alone.