Javedkar stresses the need for rural management education

Hyderabad: Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javedkar stressed the need for rural management education.

He was speaking after launching the Mahatma Gandhi Grameen Prabandh Vidya Abhiyaan at National Council of Rural Institutes here on Tuesday.

“Huge dearth of professionally trained and qualified rural managers will be filled with the curricular interventions of National Council of Rural Institutes which has taken on the onus to work with 370 state universities, 47 central universities, 31 NITs and 23 IITs with Rural Management and Rural Technology Management Courses through Mahatma Gandhi Grameen Prabandh Vidya Abhiyaan. As part this campaign, these higher education institutions would initiate Rural Management Education, Rural Case Studies, Rural Action Research and Rural Internships. It is expected to engage more than 1000 faculty members and 40000 students as well as research scholars into addressing challenges of rural management in over 6,70,000 villages in India. As part of this programme Roundtables for identifying the critical gap areas, Curriculum Development Workshops to develop tailor made and area specific curriculum, Faculty Development Programmes to impart knowledge and skills required for transaction of the rural management subject, Action Research taking up small projects addressing critical rural challenges and Rural Internships to engage students practically with rural challenges are planned” said Prakash Javdekar.

This campaign is part of the effort to gear up for celebrating 150yrs birth day of Mahatma Gandhi falling on October 2nd 2019 by when all the higher education institutions in the country would be involved to address the rural issues as part of their academic and field engagement activities.

The minister congratulated NCRI which is an autonomous council under the Ministry of Human Resource Development for choosing to focus on Rural Management Education on the eve of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

“NCRI, aims at Human Resource Development and Capacity Building of formal Institutes and universities in the country to address the issues concerning Rural India through Higher Education. Working under the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, the NCRI seeks to usher in curricular interventions in Higher Education for promoting academic activity on rural community resilience. It also works closely with the academia and student fraternity consistently evolving rural engagement programmes, interfacing the youth power with the rural resilience, for the overarching cause of rural empowerment and welfare” said Dr W G Prasanna Kumar Chairman NCRI speaking on the occasion.

Several Students and faculty members from the universities in Delhi attended the event. On the occasion the campaign poster was launched by the Minister.