The Puducherry government is planning to set up a special education zone in Karaikal, 130 km from Puducherry. The proposed zone in public-private partnership (PPP) would come up on 250-300 acres.
Education minister MOHF Shahjahan said the government was setting up a task force on education along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and academia to improve the education system in the Union territory. The state government will provide the necessary infrastructure for the proposed zone.
“We are also planning to establish an international language centre, which will teach, apart from English, German, French and Japanese.”
The government has decided to remove obsolete courses from ITI and polytechnics and introduce career-oriented curricula. Besides, it is in talks with the Singapore government for establishing technical institutes.
He said the Centre had sought 300 acre for setting up a National Institute of Technology here. It would offer 50 per cent of the seats to the locals.
Sriram Subramanya, chairman, CII Puducherry State Council, said the government had also allotted 30 acres in Puducherry for setting up a business school. The CII would rope in French business school ‘Insead’ and is in talks with a few more international schools and universities in this regard.
As part of the skill development initiative, CII is also adopting ITI institutes to train semi-skilled students under PPP. An ITI has already been adopted by Puducherry-based IT firm Integra.
“We want the Union territory to become an educational hub. Currently, there are eight engineering colleges and an equal number are in the pipeline. Similarly, there are eight medical colleges and three more have been planned. Every year about 10,000 graduates pass out from here,” he said.