The prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is slated to launch a course in Rural Management. Under this course, the students will have to make a month or two long trip to different villages spread across the nation in order to get first-hand knowledge about the ground realities and the problem faced by the villagers. This would help them in finding and suggesting viable solution for the problems faced in the villages.
The Rural Management course would be taught at the yet to be launched School of Management and Entrepreneurship at JNU. For which the JNU is planning to reach an agreement with National Council of Rural Institutes (NCRI). JNU official told that the course curriculum is being prepared with the help of experts from NCRI and the university. Both "rural engagement" and "rural management" would be taught to the students.
According to sources, there is a huge dearth of trained professionals in the rural sector and NCRI is striving to work in conjugation with several central & state universities and some other institutes to impart rural management education, rural internship programmes and research in related fields.
The students of JNU often make field trips in rural and tribal areas as a part of their research activity. However, "for producing expert rural managers who can suggest viable solutions for the rural problems it is imperative to send management students on field trips in villages that last a month or two so that they can have first-hand knowledge of problems faced in villages", said JNU official.
JNU Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar said that the university has many faculty members who are working on different aspects of rural areas including, education,health, hygiene, agricultural produce, value addition, trade and transportation, etc. "We will associate with NCRI and other institutions to evolve and teach courses for rural management and engagement with a goal to bridge the gap between rural and urban areas," he said.