SCHEME OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THROUGH POLYTECHNIC

India is a vast country with a population of over 130 crores. About 68% of India's population is rural and lives in over six lakh forty thousand villages. Its demographic profile is such that the average age of the population is 29 years and about 58% of its population is below 30 years.
✤ India has made progress in several spheres. It is the world's fifth-largest economy. Over the last few decades, it has greatly expanded its infrastructure, transportation systems, communication systems, agricultural and horticultural production, health and education facilities, etc. India is now largely self- sufficient in food grain production and has achieved high targets in milk, fruit and vegetable production. It has become an IT superpower and has also been a pioneer in space and communication technology.
✤ Notwithstanding these strides towards development, there is a visible difference between rural and urban, rich and poor, highly educated and lesser educated, which indicates uneven economic growth and regional imbalance. While some people, particularly those living in urban areas, have access to better education and professional training, the vast majority of those living in rural areas and slums are less educated and hardly undergo any technical, professional and vocational training. In terms of career options, such lesser educated and unprivileged people tend to work in the low paid unorganized sector. The productivity of such persons works out to be small in comparison to the persons employed in the organized sector. In our country's increasingly competitive economic environment, the unorganized sector, which is so important for the country’s growing economy, needs to increase the productivity of its manpower. There is, therefore, a need to train a large number of persons every year through a countrywide network of skill development institutions. Such vocational skill training should attract beneficiaries from all cross-sections of the society with special emphasis on SCs/STs, OBCs, women, school dropouts, minorities, physically disabled, economically weaker sections of the society and other underprivileged persons.
✤ Technical and Vocational Education and Training are a part of the education system in India. Under the formal education system, there is a network of almost 3 lakh Secondary and Higher Secondary schools. In addition, there are over 3500 polytechnics and more than 14000 Industrial Training institutes. The polytechnics which focus on applied skills training, exhibit the potential to provide vocational skill training to youths through their existing infrastructure/ facilities and by establishing extension centers. These institutions can also render useful services in the transfer of various technologies and can provide technical and support services for the vocational and skill training of the people.
✤ The Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his vision to promote skill development with the 3S model elaborated the concept of Skill, Scale and Speed. A new dimension under skill mission was added in the year 2015 by the creation of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to cater to the needs of vocational education and skill development.
In order to cater to these needs of the unskilled youth and the school dropouts among rural youth and women, a Scheme called 'Community Polytechnics’ was run by the Ministry of Education (erstwhile Ministry of Human Resource Development) through Polytechnic colleges. It catered to vocational education and skill training for self-employment as well as wage employment and promoted sustainable socio-economic development through appropriate intervention.
With the launch of the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM), this Scheme became a component of ‘Sub mission on Polytechnics' and was renamed as ‘Community Development through Polytechnics'. Subsequently in order to have convergence of Central Skill Development Schemes/ Programmes under one Ministry, it was transferred to the MSDE in July 2017 and termed as ‘Scheme of Polytechnics’.