MALAPPURAM: A misleading advertisement in the name of the State Resource Centre, Kerala, offering an array of technical and vocational courses that appeared in newspapers last week has led to confusion among many aspirants and their parents in Malappuram and Palakkad districts. The ad states that 10 vocational training courses including one year diploma courses in automobile engineering, civil engineering and mobile phone technology are to be conducted in aided and self-financing colleges throughout the state. Notably a majority of them are arts and science colleges which have no infrastructural facilities and faculty to provide these kinds of courses. When DC contacted one of the colleges in Malappuram district, it found that they had not even finalized the courses which are to be conducted there. Interestingly, they have started issuing applications for the courses.
The ad says that the courses will be certified by the SRC, which works under the union Ministry of Human Resource Development, and issued a professional diploma certificate that can be verified online through a website, www.srcnsdtcampus.org, which is not the official website of the SRC. Adding to the confusion, the SRC says that the courses are offered by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) of the union government. However there was no mention of NSDC either in the ad or the brochure supplied by the training centre. The NSDC has transparent and strict norms and regulations for approving training centres for its skill development courses which are available free of cost in many approved institutions.
“These courses are of NSDC and are being conducted on a tri-party agreement between the SRC, IIB Education Private Limited and identified training centres across the state. We have men in all districts to monitor and assess the training centres and the approval is given only to those who meet all the stipulated requirements,” says Dr. N.B. Suresh Kumar, director, SRC Kerala. Though the SRC itself can provide NSDC courses directly as per its norms, the involvement of a private agency has raised suspicion. When contacted, the director of IIB Education said that the company was a partner institute approved by NSDC and had approval to train 90,845 people in 10 years across India. A document in NSDC website says that IIB would conducted the courses through centres on a revenue sharing basis. The newspaper ad announcing the courses also has no mention of the IIB, the organising partner of the SRC. “IIB is one of the NSDC’s training partners and has the approval to conduct selected courses across India. We provide SRC, NSDC and Centre for Continuing Education of Kerala certificates for these courses,” Justine Roy, Director the IIB said.
