9 IIMs conduct convocation ceremony for 581 Mahatma Gandhi fellows

NEW DELHI: The convocation ceremony for 581 Mahatma Gandhi fellows was conducted across nine Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Jammu, Kozhikode, Nagpur, Ranchi, Udaipur, and Visakhapatnam. Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan addressed the ceremony and announced that credits will be granted to the fellows based on their two years of learnings at IIMs including district immersion.

Their certificates in public policy and management will be officially recorded in their Academic Bank of Credit. He congratulated all fellows in public policy and management from the IIMs, after completing this two-year fellowship programme. He said that the Mahatma Gandhi National fellows are the modern-day Vishwakarmas, holding the potential to shape the 21st century. “I have high expectations and unwavering belief that my young friends will embrace skills as their mission to contribute to the realization of a developed India,” Pradhan said.

The unique design of the programme has provided fellows with the academic insights across thematic areas like economics, management, public policy, research, finance and learnings from these were applied for strategizing and implementing some of the unique programmes at district levels during their district immersion.

The fellows are also given a monthly stipend both in the first and the second year. The programme is a testament to the power of education and skill development coming together in a synergistic manner. This is also an integration between the vocational streams of education as envisaged under National Education Policy 2020.

Launched in October 2021, phase 2 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship Programme deployed 657 fellows in districts across 33 states and UTs of India in collaboration with nine IIMs as academic partners.

During their fellowship, the fellows contributed towards events of national or international relevance such as Rozgar Melas and G20 Working Group meetings. To showcase their achievements, a report on the achievements of the fellows named ‘Stories of Change’ was also released during the virtual ceremony.