CM hails state's move to coach SC/ST students

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday hailed the initiative of the state government in providing high-end professional coaching to SC/ST students for engineering and medical entrance examinations that have yielded very good results.

"The unique initiative of our government to provide high-end professional coaching to SC/ST students for engineering and medical entrance examinations have yielded great results. Out of 939 students who took coaching this year, 348 SC and 76 ST students have ranked in Joint Entrance Examination for Engineering," Banerjee tweeted.

The Chief Minister further informed through her tweet that among the SC/ST students, 95 have secured ranks among the top 1,000.

"In medical stream also, 125 SC/ST aspirants qualified in NEET and are likely to qualify for admission in reputed government institutions. My heartiest congratulations and best wishes to all of them," Banerjee further tweeted.

She maintained that the state government is already taking steps to expand such specialised coaching arrangements so that more and more students can benefit from it and get placed in professional courses. It may be mentioned that Career Paramarsh Kendra (CPK) to provide information regarding jobs and training to the SC/ST and unemployed youth, has been set up in the city in March this year by the Backward Classes Welfare and Tribal Development department. It will come up with 30 centres by the end of 2017-18 fiscal and another 37 in 2018-19 thereby covering all 67 sub-divisions in the state within a span of less than two years. The need to set up the CPKs was felt as the facility for getting information on career prospects, be it in the educational sector or employment, is still in a primitive level, particularly in the rural areas.