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1711 IST, Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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    Indian Technical And Economic Cooperation Programme

India's ITEC programme prepares them with life-sustaining skills

They carry a little bit of India in their hearts and minds. Over 25,000 students and diplomats from countries as diverse as Nigeria, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Romania, Panama, Honduras and Maldives are passouts of a 45-year-old skills training programme in India that has empowered them to adapt and succeed in their chosen careers in a globalised world.

The face of India's commitment to South-South cooperation, the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme has disseminated expertise and the country's developmental experience over nearly six decades to generations of students and budding diplomats from 156 countries in Asia, Africa, East Europe, Central Asia and Latin America.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh encapsulated the ethos of the ITEC programme in his address to the first India-Africa Forum summit held in New Delhi last year. “Both India and Africa are blessed with young populations. It is only by investing in the creative energies of our youth that the potential of our partnership will be fulfilled.”

Manmohan Singh also announced a hike of slots for African students in the ITEC programme.

“We will enhance opportunities for African students to pursue higher studies in India. As an immediate measure we propose to double our long-term scholarships for undergraduates, postgraduates and higher courses and increase the number of training slots under our technical assistance programmes from 1100 to 1600 every year,” he said.

Started in 1964 as a bilateral programme of assistance of the Indian government, the ITEC programme, including its corollary SCAAP (Special Commonwealth Assistance for Africa Programme), has expanded to include some 220 odd courses ranging from IT, textile designing, foreign affairs to commerce and science.

Students who are selected for ITEC courses - most of these courses are short-duration lasting from two to three to six weeks - are sent to 39 institutions empanelled by India's Ministry of External Affairs.

"We share our expertise and transfer skills that stay with them for their whole life. It is infinitely more important than just giving money," says Primrose Sharma, who headed the department of technical cooperation in the Indian external affairs ministry a couple of years ago.

ITEC is divided into five components: training in India of nominees of ITEC partner countries; projects and project related activities such as feasibility studies and consultancy services; deputation of Indian experts abroad; study tours; and aid for disaster relief.

The rationale behind imparting technical training to young men and women from developing countries is based on India's strengths and expertise in different sectors of the knowledge economy.

"India is not a rich country and cannot offer grants-in-aid to match those of the developed countries. It does, however, possess skills of manpower and technology more appropriate to the geographical and ecological conditions and the stage of technological development of several developing countries," says the ITEC website www.itec.nic.in.

Besides empowering them with life-sustaining skills, the ITEC programme also gives students from different countries a taste of the multicultural and pluralistic secular ethos of India.

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