Punjab government to set up vocational training centres

Rakesh Mittal

Punjab government on Friday gave its nod to the setting up of vocational training centres at all 'Adarsh schools' of the state to provide quality technical training to youths.

A decision to this effect was taken in the eighth meeting of the Punjab education development board held under the chairmanship of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal here, an official spokesman said.

In the meeting, the chief minister asked the chief secretary to draft a policy for setting up vocational training centres at all 'Adarsh Schools' of the state so that quality technical training can be imparted to the youth belonging to the rural areas.

Badal emphasised that with the opening of these centres, quality education could be imparted to the students besides opening the new avenues of the self employment for them.

During the meeting, permission was granted to 'Adarsh School' being run by the Bharti Foundation to open one such centre at the school.

Divulging the details, member of the board, Rakesh Mittal said that these centres would be opened in two out of the five schools run by the foundation as pilot projects.

He said that in these centres, the unemployed youth of the area along with the students of senior secondary classes in the schools would be provided with technical training thereby enabling them for self employment.

Mittal categorically said that these centres would not take any fee from the students against the technical training imparted to them.

Private varsities bill gets nod despite opposition

Punjab assembly passed two controversial bills on Friday, paving the way for two private universities to come up in the state even as the treasury benches ridiculed private varsities terming them as teaching shops set up to mint money.

Even as the opposition boycotted the session and did not debate the bills, the treasury benches seemed to have taken over the opposition's role as several legislators of the ruling SAD-BJP alliance slammed the private universities and raised apprehension that these would not be in the interest of the students. Despite this, the Desh Bhagat University Bill and the DAV University Bill were okayed.

SAD MLA Som Prakash said, "Lovely Professional University was set up in 2005 and has more than 25,000 students from 26 nations. But... the standard of education needs to be monitored. In a survey done by metro man E Sreedharan, it was found that only 21% of MBA students are capable of jobs, only 12% of engineers can be recruited directly and the rest need training and 36% of students passing out of private universities are not qualified for jobs despite training."

Nirmal Singh, another SAD MLA, said, "Private institutions have no seats for the poor. Even at places where they have taken panchayat land from villages on discounted prices they have not bothered to give concession to village children. Government must ensure that they follow norms."

BCom-II exam cancelled after paper leaks

BCom second-year exam of Panjab University was cancelled after the question paper was leaked. The exam for Corporate Accounts which was scheduled to be held on Tuesday at 2pm, will now be held on May 3.

A resident of Kitchlu Nagar, Swati Bhandari said, ''I worked very hard to prepare for the exam. I even got up at 4am on exam day to revise but when I reached the examination centre I got to know that it had been cancelled. Now I will have to keep revising till the next date for exam.''

Resident of Rishi Nagar, Mahima Arora said, ''University should take the matter seriously and full-proof security system should be put in place so that such incidents can be avoided in future.''

Resident of Clock Tower, Vasudha Garg said, ''The guilty should be brought to book and punished severely. Thousands of students have been inconvenienced because of a few miscreants.''