THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: IN AN effort to nurture entrepreneurial skills among students and support their innovative ideas, the state government will start incubation centres at all schools in the state from the next academic year.
As part of it, all schools will be brought under the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) by next academic year and incubation centres will be started once the higher secondary and VHSE are integrated.
At present, NSQF has been implemented in 66 VHSE schools in the state. NSQF is a competency-based framework for assessing the skill-level knowledge and aptitude of school students.
“We have begun the process to bring all schools under NSQF. As part of the school integration scheme, all VHSE schools will be converted to higher secondary schools.
Thus ‘skill development’ will become a common subject for all higher secondary students,” Education Minister C Raveendranath told ‘Express’.
“As part of this, we will begin incubation centres which will act as facilitators for students to hone their skills so that they will be able to launch start-ups in their favourite fields,” he said.
This will not be limited to technology incubators, but will be a common platform to exhibit whatever skills they have, he said.
“The government will seek the assistance from all stakeholders including Kerala Start-Up Mission for the successful implementation of the project,” the minister said.
The VHSE schools would be made regular higher secondary schools in the second of phase of school integration based on the recommendations of Khader Commission report.
Apart from a Start-Up Mission, the general education department is expected to seek help from Keltron, Kerala Agricultural University, KTDC and KSEB to start incubation centres.
The government has initiated steps to give training at VHSE schools and 290 vocational higher secondary batches will undergo training soon as per NSQF guidelines.
The training will be led under the aegis of the general education department and the State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET).