Team Herald
PANJIM: In a bid to provide employment to local youth, the Startup Policy 2017 envisages tweaking the education system of the State, including starting new courses and seeking support of IITs and IIMs across the country.
As per the policy document, the Startup Cell will focus on bringing about a targeted transformation in the education system, by ensuring that certain skills (such as Do-It-Yourself, coding, interface design, etc) can be imparted to students studying at primary and secondary school levels.
“This will ensure that the State builds a highly skilled and technology oriented human capital. For this purpose, a high-level committee will be constituted by the government to suggest curriculum changes for students who need to be skilled to undertake such activity,” the document says.
The policy says that retail educational institutes that impart programming and technical skills will be encouraged in Goa.
“Institutes registered with the cell and providing courses at pre-fixed rates, will be provided internet subsidy (up to Rs 5 lakh per year), power subsidy (up to Rs 1 lakh per year), 25% capital investments reimbursement (on all capital procurement for a period of two years), and 10% salary cost subsidy for a period of two years,” it says
Further, the cell will determine the standard market rates for the various on-demand and industry relevant programming courses, which will be widely publicised.
“Students, who are currently pursuing their graduation or are within two years from the time of their graduation within the original stipulated period of study, can enroll for these programs. On successful completion of the training program, 50% of the fees paid will be reimbursed to the student by the cell,” it says, adding this is available only to students who are enrolled in a Goan educational institute.
In this regard, the policy says the cell will also seek the services of institutes of excellence such as IITs/IIMs, to review and suggest changes to the curriculum at the engineering and other graduate level courses in Goa, and make it contemporary and market relevant.
“The cell would also ensure inclusion of course curriculum pertaining to entrepreneurship, corporate finance, organisational theory and design, with a specific emphasis on founding and running of start-ups,” the policy states.
The policy says that the cell would run a technology fellowship program to identify technology educators in technical educational institutes under Goa University who are keen to further their expertise.
“Such selected educators/fellows would be sent to centres of excellence within the country and abroad to undertake summer school and short term training programs to further their learning in their area of specialisation. The Department of IT will endeavour to set up Centres of Excellence/Advanced Maker Labs, in the technologies outlined above, in select technical educational institutes,” it says.
