A select group of civil services aspirants in Kalahandi district of Odisha will get coaching free of cost every year under the newly launched ‘Mission Akankhya’, an official said on Saturday. An MOU in this regard was signed between the Kalahandi district administration and Vision IAS, New Delhi, on the occasion of Independence Day, he said.
The district administration will provide the infrastructure facilities, and the Institute will impart free coaching to a group of 60 students each year, selected on the basis of a written test and interview in both classroom and online mode, the official said. Registrations will start from August 22, and the examination will be conducted on September 21, he said. The selected students will be provided coaching by experts in Bhawanipatna from the first week of October, he added.
The Institute has taken similar initiatives in the interiors of aspirational districts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. In Odisha, this is the first such venture in Kalahandi district, the official said. Kalahandi is an aspirational district identified by the NITI Aayog for focused development under the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP).
Meanwhile, former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, while attending the fourth convocation of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Kota’s Ranpur area, called coaching institutes poaching centres and a black hole for talent. In his speech, he also urged the civil societies and public representatives to restore sanity in education.
“I urge civil societies (and) public representatives to appreciate the urgency of this disease (coaching). We must converge to restore sanity in education,” Dhankar said, adding that “let Kota be an education centre and not be hub of poaching or coaching centres.” “The seats are limited, and coaching centres are all over the country. They…robotise our students, making their thinking absolutely stifled,” Dhankhar lamented.
“Remember, your marksheet (and) grade(s) will never define you. When you leap into the competitive world, your knowledge and thinking mind will define you,” he said.
