'Need to start Technology Schools to focus on technical education'

Bengaluru, Oct 5 (IANS) Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday said there is a need to start 'Technology Schools' to put emphasis on technical education among the students at high-school level.

He said this after virtually inaugurating the 'Innovation and Impact' programme organised by the Department of Electronics, IT/Bt and Science and Technology under the 'Beyond Bengaluru' initiative.

He said the work would be implemented right away to promote the growth of innovative industries in the Hubballi region.

"There was a technology school in Hubballi way back in 1960 itself which was closed later. But, technology schools need to be started considering the fact that perception ability will be more during childhood," he stated.

He said that Atal Tinkering Labs should be upgraded and artificial intelligence must be included at that level at least to some extent. He added that Polytechnics also need to be upgraded along the lines of up-gradation of 150 ITIs in the state.

C.N. Ashwath Narayan, the Minister for IT/Bt and S&T said, a centre of excellence (CoE) for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Engineering will be set up soon in Hubballi. He further said, the National Education Policy (NEP-2020) aspires to prepare the students as per the global technological developments, and accordingly, coding will be taught for students at the school level itself.

The government has brought in effective policies to promote innovative technologies and the duration of the internship has risen from three weeks to 30 weeks. Students will also be given the opportunity to undergo internship in foreign countries, Narayan explained.

Aravind Bellad, an MLA, suggested focusing on developing the Hubballi cluster as a hardware manufacturing hub.

Prashanth Prakash, Chairperson, State Vision Group, pointed out that it is suitable to start agri-tech, climate-tech, and space-tech industries in the Hubballi cluster.

B.V. Naidu, Chairperson, KDEM (Karnataka Digital Economy Mission), opined that there should be efforts to promote indigenous manufacturing of Tablet PCs.

E.V. Ramana Reddy, ACS, Dept of Electronics, IT/Bt, Ashok S. Shettar, Vice-Chancellor, KLE Technical University, Aravind Malligeri, CEO, Aechus, among others were also present.