Page:SELECTED ESSAYS of Dr. S. S. KALBAG.pdf/20

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Dr. Kalbag has dealt in length about variety of skills to be learned by students in school education. He was of the opinion that "varieties of skill are necessary to energise the mind just as a variety of exercises are required to tone all the body muscles". For him "the skills were means to concretise one's ideas and inventions". Many people have apprehensions that the thrust on skill learning can reduce the learning to the level of vocational education. Though such apprehensions emerge more strongly in respect of rural education, he was very clear about the role of multi skill training in his education system. He did not advocate the skill training for making the students master craftsmen but to give them enough exposure to know the skills; it's suitability to their aptitude and also to facilitate technological literacy. Dr. Kalbag elaborates the importance of imparting attitude and skills necessary for entrepreneurship through education in many of the articles. He says, "Entrepreneurship is not just self-employment. It implies innovation and uncovering new opportunities”. (Ref: Chapter 20, "Self-employment and agriculture, random experiences and thoughts”) The unique concept of "instructor as entrepreneur" developed by him was influenced by this thought. He also tried to address problems of unemployed dropouts through this concept, which was also one of the characteristic and adventurous features of his programme. He says, “We have a large population of dropouts who need to be usefully employed. There are no salaried jobs to give them. But there are many jobs to be done for the community as also reconstruction jobs, which can be made by small enterprises... We appoint a trained 'drop-out' as an instructor in the school. He operates his business with the school facilities and gives hands-on training to students. He gets the surplus from the operation, the community gets service at a modest cost and students get a good Rural Development Through Education System 15