Now, higher education to be linked with rural community

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 30

Sensing the need to acquaint the youth with the issues and challenges of the rural community, city students, pursuing higher education, will now have to study the curriculum for ‘rural engagement’ designed by the Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education, MHRD, GOI.

A meeting in this regard was recently held in Hyderabad wherein representatives from all states were invited. The National Council of Rural Institutes (NCRI), Hyderabad, under the Department of Higher Education, has designed the curriculum for ‘rural community engagement’. The context of the curriculum is to highlight the importance of rural engagement in higher education so as to get an insight into problems being faced by the Indian population residing in rural areas.

The proposed model of the curriculum has five modules for one semester. These are interdisciplinary in nature and practice-oriented.

It will be a four-credit add-on course, with two theory class and two practical classes of four hours per week for one semester. Students will be dealing with health concerns of villagers, drainage system of villages and health habits of villagers. They will prepare seasonal maps and timeline maps to understand and create awareness among villagers about seasonal hazards and prepare actions plans.

Rural engagement need of the hour: Bikram Rana

State Liaison Officer Bikram Singh Rana said: “We have submitted the curriculum to Panjab University so that they add the required topics in courses. We will call teachers from the social science background to discuss the curriculum. Engagement of the youth with the rural community is important for the nation to develop. We have been growing individually but not as a whole or community. The curriculum should have been proposed much earlier as it is the need of the hour.”