Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Sep 3: T V Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education, on Monday September 2 said that job-oriented courses need to be conducted for youngsters on a large scale.
He was addressing a press meet at Ocean Pearl here.
"Our MPs and MLAs have to look into these matters of creating job opportunities for our young generation. Our economic condition, connectivity and tourism have to be focused on, with this aspect in mind.
"Public needs to demand to all these necessities. Youth are getting educated and moving elsewhere in search of jobs, if this continues, in the future, our city will soon turn out to be a ghost town. Our countries economic status is going lower as no one is coming forward to invest here. Lack of jobs is a high end problem faced by our youth in the recent days. Ask and demand for the jobs with our political leaders and representatives," he added.
U Ramdas Kamath, chairman of Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund committee, said, "The World Konkani Center, under the Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund, has awarded merit-cum-means scholarships worth Rs 2.5 crore to the students of the Konkani Community at an Award Ceremony held on Monday September 2."
Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund envisages grant of merit-cum-means scholarship for students having Konkani language as their mother tongue. Instituted by the Mangalore based World Konkani Center in the year 2010 as envisioned by the eminent thinker and corporate leader T V Mohandas Pai, the VKSSF has since then successfully raised and distributed over 2000 scholarships to the tune of Rs 3.50 crore, he said.
VKSSF has set up several scholarship programs. The flagship program being the engineering and MBBS scholarship program with a scholarship amount of Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000 per year per student respectively. VKSSF has awarded 860 engineering and 43 MBBS scholarships since 2010. This year VKSSF supported the professional education quest of 596 engineering and 28 MBBS Scholars.
VKSSF also has a 'study abroad' scholarship for higher education abroad, with a scholarship amount of Rs 1 lac per year per student. The fund has since 2010 has awarded four scholarships under this program and this year it has awarded five scholarships, he added.
In view of widening the scope of the scholarships, VKSSF has initiated a new scheme in 2012 to empower communities like, Kudubi, Kharvi etc. Under this scheme VKSSF awarded 749 PUC and degree students with a scholarship amount Rs 2500 and Rs 5000 respectively.
VKSSF has a special program for degree students of Konkani speaking communities from Kerala. Apart from this VKSSF has also supported the scholarship program like Vidya Poshak Udupi and Kharvi Vidhya Nidhi, Kundapur, he added.
"More than scholarships, we are focusing on training and personality development courses also. 440 students visited our website, 215 applied and 165 were selected out of that. Students are not interested in training, hence majority have been dropped out. Practical knowledge is very important, hence we are focusing on training camps, he said.
Sharing her views, Jenita Menezes, a scholar said that the World Konkani Center grants not just scholarship, but that they focus on the overall personality development. Every camp and training that they conduct keeps every individual in focus. Language and communication skills are developed by these courses.
President Basti Vaman Shenoy, scholar Raghavendra were also present on the occasion.