Include border areas in itinerary of regular education tours for students: Jitendra Singh

NEW DELHI: Union minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said the minimum that the universities and education institutions could do is to include border areas in the itinerary of regular educational tours conducted for students.

The suggestion by the minister came while addressing a seminar on ''Academic campus vis-a-vis Border Security'' organised by the Delhi University faculty.

Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, said it is an irony that even within the university campus, the issues related to borders or the border people do not find much space either in the academic curriculum or in the campus discussions.

This, he said, is quite in contrast to the practice followed in some of the western universities where not only issues related to border and warfare occupy an important place in the curriculum, but the students also follow the tradition of spending some time out of their academic career with the forces either as trainees or researchers.

“Jitendra Singh suggested that the minimum that the universities and education institutions could do is to include the border areas in the itinerary of regular educational tours conducted for the students,” according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Personnel.

This will not only enable the students to have a feel of the political and patriotic fervour but also give them the realisation of the hardships faced by the soldiers on the border who stay hungry and awake to guard us so that we can carry out our activities at our respective places, he said.

Proposals required

Singh said university scholars and various organisations working in the border areas could come out with certain concrete proposals, which could be placed before the Ministry of Education, which is in the process of implementing the new National Education Policy (NEP).

He also called for working out the feasibility of campus placement for jobs in security forces on the same lines as is done for jobs in the engineering, IT sector, among others.

The Union minister said border issues had been given special impetus by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and ever since this government took over in 2014, there has been a concerted effort to address issues related to both security forces deployed in the border areas as well as people living in the border areas.

Complementing the prime minister for having taken certain decisions which boosted the morale of security forces as well as the population living along the borders, he said, the forces on the borders today feel much more confident with much higher levels of preparedness coupled with greater freedom to take decisions on the spot depending on the situation.

Similarly, people living in border areas are now realising that there is a government that cares for them because it is only in the last few years that safety bunkers have been erected in individual houses, toilets along the international border (IB) are under construction, insurance cover for human beings as well as livestock has been enhanced, and above all, 4 per cent reservation has been earmarked in jobs and educational institutions for the youth living along IB, the statement added.

Write to us at news@careers360.com