American Center course
2 min readPatna: English and the opportunities it provides were discussed at an event to launch the second English Access Program being provided by the American Center in Calcutta.
American Center, Calcutta, director Jamie Dragon, who inaugurated the course at Bihar Vidyapeeth on Tuesday, listed the benefits of knowing English and of doing business. “People in Bihar choose to become IAS or IPS officers as they think about stability. But starting a business is not as crazy an idea as most parents often think. Therefore, increasing social acceptance for business ideas needs to be addressed at the societal level first,” Jamie said.
At Bihar Vidyapeeth, Jamie interacted with Bihar Entrepreneurship Association, a non-profit organisation aimed at proving incubation support to young entrepreneurs in the state. “English language is a skill and it has the power to turn around lives of individuals. Students should use Internet as a tool and seek an opportunity to speak,” he said. The course he inaugurated is a 2-year after school programme to learn English with innovative approaches. “Our objective is to bring strong communication skills among students. There will be special focus on poor students,” Jamie said.
He also visited Diksha Foundation, a Patna-based NGO established in 2010 working for providing quality education to students from disenfranchised communities.
Goutam Gouri, co-founder of the entity, said: “The quality of education in government schools has plummeted. So, we enrol poor students and start their holistic development. Currently, there are over 150 students with us learning maths, English and the use of computers.”
During the interaction, students informed him about their Children’s Parliament, where they explained how they function in a democratic manner by assigning jobs to their “ministers”.
Rakesh Kumar, 10, the “prime minister” of the little parliament, said: “Democracy is a rule by the people and for the people and gives everyone equal opportunity to rise in their lives.”
The American Centre is engaged in Bihar to spread awareness about gender equality, entrepreneurship and anti-trafficking. Earlier, it conducted a Global Entrepreneurship Summit, 2017, in Hyderabad under the theme “Women first, Prosperity for all”.
“Under our Youth For Business programme, 13 young entrepreneurs from Bihar and 11 from Jharkhand had got selected. Among them 10 finalists will get training in Texas University on entrepreneurship. As of now, we don’t give them any financial support,” Jamie said.
He also said that the public school system in the state needs to be revamped so that young business leaders can thrive in schools. Addressing the needs of a large ambitious population is a challenge.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
