Skill Development Programme
The basic purpose of education is to endow human beings with the ability to look upon the universe as at a mirror. As food and oxygen are essential for man's survival, so school-level education is essential to his all-round intellectual growth. Higher education, on the other hand, should ideally be objective and goal-oriented. A country's higher education policy should, therefore, be framed keeping in mind the demands of the nation, the direction of progress of human civilization, the global socio-economic changes, optimum utilization of natural and human resources, and the acquisition of knowledge through an awareness of new inventions, innovations, and discoveries.
Under the present system pertaining to the general course programmes being conducted at the undergraduate level in our country, a significant portion of our vast human resources is being transformed into a practically useless 'knowledge bin' that contributes little or nothing to the nation's growth. What is, therefore, required, is a revamp of the course curriculum by which college and university-level education can be made more skill-oriented in order to meet the socio-economic demands of a rapidly-developing country.
The basic purpose of introducing skill development programmes in the academic curriculum at the higher education level is to initiate industry-academia partnership in curriculum designing, teaching-learning-evaluating process, leading ultimately to suitable placement in industry.
In the context of Asutosh College, predominantly a general streams degree college, the real challenge lies in attracting students by offering them not merely a graduate degree, but also opening up parallel avenues of knowledge and more importantly, career options, in the form of soft skills development through short-term professional courses. With this very objective of skill development in mind, the Asutosh College Training Centre, or ACTC, was established in 1991, the Platinum Jubilee Year of the college. The centre is housed in a five-storied building on Basanta Bose Road that runs along the north face of the college Main Building. A DOEACC-approved Computer Training Centre (PPP model) has been functioning under the aegis of the ACTC since 1992. In 1994, the Calcutta University-approved B.Sc.Vocational course (3years) in Industrial Fish and Fisheries, under the department of Zoology, was initiated. In 1996, keeping in view the demand generated by the proliferation of information technology, the B.Sc. general course (CU) in Computer Science was introduced, and the same was upgraded to the Honours level in 2001. Keeping pace with the current need for management personnel in industry, the BBA (Hons.) course was introduced in 2002.
Since the closing decade of the preceding century, there has been a boom in the field of different media of mass communication, especially, the electronic, along with an increased demand for good English language communication skills. To cater to this dual need of the market the Honours course in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Major course in Communicative English (both under Calcutta University) were introduced in 2003.
A host of other career-oriented courses, mostly short-term, have also been initiated by the college since 2010, like the Diploma course in Safety Engineering and Management, Diploma and Certificate courses in Export-Import Management (PPP model).
In 2013, we took the initiative in introducing the UGC-approved Add-on courses in three much-in-demand areas - Travel and Tourism, Industrial Chemistry, and Hospital Waste Disposal Management. In this connection, we would like to add that the UGC-approved B.Voc courses(3years) in Software Development and Industrial Aquaculture and Fisheries, and the Community College scheme offering Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses in Software Development and Mobile Communication, have been successfully launched in the college (2014), at the second campus in Bhasa.
In 2019 and 2020, the College has introduced three Certificate Courses under the Asutosh College Training Centre. These are as follows: Basic Computer Course and Web Designing; Communication Development and Soft Skill; Career Counselling and Training Programme.
It is our belief that the introduction of these courses will provide a wider scope to students with regard to career options. Since in a developing country like ours we do not have the luxury of indulging academics in isolation from socio-economic and employment concerns.