Prime Minister Narendra Modi has digitally launched entrepreneurship cells and skill hubs in 66 colleges across the country, including 12 in Mumbai. This comes on the heels of a video conference on Sunday wherein Modi emphasized the need to develop an ecosystem for entrepreneurship in colleges and universities in India.
Under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shikshan Abhiyan (RUSA), there were 25 projects inaugurated in Maharashtra alone. PM Modi also launched 70 model degree colleges from Srinagar, digitally. These cells have been launched to foster a start-up culture in colleges and universities and encourage skill development among students studying in leading autonomous science, commerce and arts colleges.
Maharashtra technical education minister Vinod Tawde who was present at St. Xavier’s College for the launch said that these entrepreneurship cells will provide also research opportunities to students. He also added that students will become job givers and not job seekers, in the coming years. Jai Hind, St Xavier’s, Mithibai, Ramnarain Ruia, Sophia, Khalsa, and SIEs are among the colleges in Mumbai where the entrepreneurship cells were launched. Each college will receive a funding of Rs. 50 lakh under RUSA.
Additionally, two model degree colleges in Nandurbar and Washim districts were inaugurated on Sunday. These entrepreneurship cells come as another initiative to better education in the country, after Union Minister Piyush Goyal announced the allocation of Rs. 93,847.64 crore for the education sector, a 10 per cent increase from last year’s budgetary allocation of Rs. 85,010 crore.
Development of high-quality infrastructure, digitisation of classrooms, sanctioning of new projects, and construction of new schools have been proposed under the interim budget.