• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala, September 15, 2022 : Tripura’s Tribal Welfare department and NEDFi (North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday under the Advancing North East project; for career mentoring of school students.

Advancing North East is an initiative of North Eastern Council, Ministry of DONER and NEDFi for mentoring of the youths of North East in terms of Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship. The MoU was signed by Dr Vishal Kumar, Director of the Tribal Welfare department and S K Baruah, Executive Director of the NEDFi at a ceremony organized at the office of the Directorate of Tribal Welfare at Gurkhabasti here in Agartala city.

Under the collaboration, 30 teachers from the schools run by the department will be trained under the Advancing North East project as Career Mentors who will guide the students through a systematic approach. The initiative will ensure availability of in-house support in the schools in terms of career mentoring and Advancing North East will act as resource centre for them.

Further within 6 months, the students will be connected to the career ecosystem through career talks with various experts, entrance exam talks with toppers, entrepreneurship mindset development sessions and exposure to premier national level institutions such as IIT, IIM, NID, NIFT, NIT etc.

During the ceremony, Dr Vishal Kumar stated that the 30 teachers nominated by the Department will act as master trainer in Department’s effort to empower the students with informed career decision making and they will create a cascading effect in the coming days by developing more number of teachers to make the whole effort sustainable and process driven. The project in its first phase is expected to impact approximately 2500 students studying in the schools run by the department.

In his remark, S K Baruah, Executive Director of the NEDFI stated that Advancing North East aims to create a strong career and livelihood ecosystem in the North Eastern region through collaboration with critical stakeholders in all the north eastern region states.

The event was also attended by Prithviraj Neog, Team Leader of the Advancing North East project, Dinesh Kumar Lahoti, Head Career Coach of the Advancing North East project and other senior officials of Tribal Welfare department and Tripura Rural Livelihood Mission.