OREANDA-NEWS. December 5, 2011. In order to  strengthen vocational education courseware and instructor training in India  through industry relevant train-the-trainer curriculum and materials  development, Jindal Education Initiatives, a philanthropic initiative of Jindal  Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), Wadhwani Foundation and Montgomery College  (MC), USA have entered into a strategic partnership.

Recognition  of India’s need to increase significantly the numbers of educated and skilled  young adults to compete in an increasingly globalized, knowledge-based economy  is the context for the MoU. The goal of the collaboration is to develop,  implement, monitor, and evaluate a technical trade instructor training program  and related instructional materials with a view to scale-up nationally.

“Given  the complementary objectives and capabilities, the MoU proposes to collaborate  on developing a state-of-the-art, world class, advanced training program for  technical trade instructors comprising curricula that are industry job driven  and progressive,” said Mr. Naveen  Jindal, CMD, JSPL.

Jindal  Education Initiatives (JE) will be the implementation partner providing “hard  infrastructure” i.e., fully-equipped trade instructor training facility and  staffing, while Montgomery College will provide technical expertise using a  mutually agreed upon cost recovery model. The Wadhwani Foundation will be the  capacity building partner augmenting “soft infrastructure” like curriculum and courseware development, faculty  development and enabling technology platform.

It  may be recalled that Jindal Education Initiatives had launched Community  Colleges across India early this year providing vocational education  certificates and diploma programmes in 37 market-demand trades for 5,000  students. The OP Jindal Community College (OPJCC) campuses are located in Angul  and Barbil in Orissa, Patratu and Godda in Jharkhand and Punjipathra in  Chhattisgarh. OPJCC is registered under the IGNOU Community College Scheme and  the certificates and diplomas are recognized by the Ministry of Human Resources  and Development.

Over  the next five years, OPJCC intends to enroll over 100,000 vocational education  students.

Jindal  Education Initiatives had also partnered with Montgomery College, Maryland, USA  for this purpose. The partnership entailed workforce development curricula in  automotive technology, construction management and building trades to lead an  initiative to build critical capacity in the community college/technical  education sector in India through faculty exchange programmes and development  of curricula.

Wadhwani  Foundation launched a similar initiative last year called “Wadhwani Skills  Colleges” with the goal of creating capacity for industry linked vocational  education of 3 million students over the next decade. As the name indicates, it  marries the usefulness of jobs driven skills into the pathway for prestigious  college degrees. This partnership with Jindal Education and Montgomery College  is a first step towards creating capacity for a national level Teacher Training  Program.   

The  MoU was signed by Dr. Sanjeev Sahni, Head, Education Initiatives, JSPL, Dr.  Derionne Pollard, President, Montgomery College and Dr. Ajay Kela, President  and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation at a glittering event here today. Also present on  the occasion was Mr Naveen Jindal, CMD, JSPL and the First Lady of Maryland,  Ms. Catherine O’Malley.