BHUBANESWAR: Utkal University will soon offer IAS coaching to its students. The university administration has sent a proposal to the State Government to begin coaching for Civil Services examination at its Directorate of Distance and Continuing Education (DDCE) and PG Council building.
Informing this on the occasion of 48th convocation of the university on Friday, Vice-Chancellor (VC) Ashok Das said DDCE has all the facilities to run the training programme independently with State Government funding. The coaching in PG Council building will be provided in collaboration with Vikash Trust, a privately-run education training agency, he said.
The VC informed that this year, the university will begin a new course - Diploma in Human Capital Management - for training ITI fellows for ‘Teach for Odisha’ programme, which was launched by the State Government to make ITI students globally competitive.
The Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA), in collaboration with NGOs, will implement the programme in 10 Government-run institutes and Utkal University will act as mentor for the project.
“After training, the fellows will teach in ITIs as per the industry requirement. They will undergo training in theory papers at Utkal University for two weeks every three months after which they will return to their allotted institute to teach students,” Das said.
This apart, the university is now shifting its focus on infrastructure growth. An atomic outreach centre and human resources development centre are in the offing while new language and social science blocks are being readied on the campus. The youth services centre and placement cell of the university are also being expanded at a cost of `12.5 lakh.
Delivering the convocation address, Chairman of OSDA Subroto Bagchi urged the students to be politically active and expand their circle of concern beyond their families and careers to include community and the country. Referring to the unrest during students’ union elections, Bagchi asked the students to refrain from violence.
Chancellor of University and Governor SC Jamir said continuous academic re-engineering, re-structuring and innovation are the need of the hour.
On the occasion, Jamir conferred Honoris Causa on noted social worker Arundati Debi, Director General of CIPET Sanjay Kumar Nayak, CMD of Neyvalli Lignite Corporation Sarat Kumar Acharya, VC of NLUI-Bengaluru R Venkat Rao, renal transplant expert Mukut Minz, who has been selected for this year’s Padma Shri award and former director of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar Ashok Kumar Mohapatra.
PhD degrees were conferred on 281 students and 88 students received gold medals apart from 14 students receiving cash prizes.