Siddhartha Vihar Trust believes strongly that education is the bedrock of progress. The reason we have persistent inequality in our society in terms of gender, class and caste is due to the inequality in access to education and wide difference in the quality of education available to different sections of the society. Quality higher education is a must if the deprived classes have to get an opportunity to participate in the growing economic prosperity of our nation. It has been our earnest endeavor to remove such inequalities and provide equitable opportunities to the deprived sections of the society.
Over the last decade, the trust has been providing skill development and training programmes to graduates to enable them to attempt various competitive examinations that are being conducted by UPSC, KPSC, and other public sector undertakings.
The trust has successfully started the "Siddhartha Academy" at Kalaburagi in order to provide training to the students of Kalyana Karnataka region who are desirous of appearing for the UPSC, KPSC, Bank Probationary Officers Exams and other similar competitive examinations. Subsequent to the constitutional amendment of 371(j) granting special status to Hydrabad-Karnatak region, the students of this hitherto backward area have an equitable opportunity for gainful employment in the state civil services and non-SCS vacancies, and the establishment of this centre has helped them prepare better for appearing at these exams.
The trust was set up in the year 1991 to impart quality education and training to the students and youth in the Kalyana Karnataka region. The trust has set up the main institution in the city of Gulbarga to ensure that youngsters and students who are unable to go to larger cities for coaching get access to quality training, books, newspapers, study room, library and computer facilities that are available in cities like Bangalore or Hyderabad.
We are happy to inform you that more than 15 batches of KPSC/KAS, PDO, PSI, Bank Probationary Officer examinations have been trained at the centre. An overwhelming majority of the aspirants who come to our centre do not have the benefit of a high quality undergraduate and school education. This puts them at a significant disadvantage to aspirants who have studied in better universities, colleges in larger cities or metros. Despite this disadvantage, 90 aspirants have been successful from our centre, including 18 for gazetted posts.
The entire classroom teaching programme is free for the students and only a nominal amount is charged for library access. We are currently conducting the classes and operating out of the premises that have been graciously lent by other charitable organisations. We now intend to construct our own building so that we can accommodate the growing number of students and aspirants who are attending our courses.
Over the last decade, the Siddhartha Academy has developed a reputation for academic excellence and provides high quality training to aspirants. The institute is run purely on a charitable basis and the entire expenses of running and administering the institute is borne by the Siddhartha Vihar Trust.
More than 1,000 aspirants have undergone training at the institute for KPSC Examinations.
The first batch for KPSC Prelims was started in February 2015. 44 students enrolled at our institute in the first batch. Out of these, 14 aspirants cleared the 2014 Prelims. A second batch was started for the KPSC Mains. 27 aspirants enrolled at our institute in this batch and 13 of them cleared the mains.
Classes and mock tests are conducted regularly to inculcate the habit of off season preparation among the aspirants of Kalyan Karnataka region and to keep them encouraged and motivated. We prepare the aspirants for their personality test by conducting mock interviews, daily group discussions and classroom teaching. Many KAS and other officers also lent their support to this cause by conducting these interviews and giving valuable advice to the aspirants.
The Academy is pleased to announce that 90 students have been successful in clearing competitive examinations from our institute and many more are awaiting results for the examinations conducted in the current year.
For more information about Siddhartha Academy, please follow this link.
We are also in the process of setting a Skill Development Institute that can impart training for various technical and vocation courses including electrical, mechanical, hardware and information technology. We hope this will equip youngsters from the Kalyana Karnataka region to gain employment in the growing tech and manufacturing sector.
The coursework would be highly rigorous while also being inclusive. The vision of the institute would be to create single learning space where students of 3 different levels - Diploma, Degree and Post Graduate Research - would work together in an immersive environment.
The institute shoudl have a training institute that can cater to diploma student that has to scale to meet the requirements of a institution that can skill and educate degree students. This institution has to develop itself to a research center that can cater to the requirements and rigour of high quality research that can meet industry requirements. The growth of these three institutes that cater to three different levels of job seekers and students should be organic.
Soft Skills [360 hours]
This should include developing skills in drafting, public speaking and making presentations.
1. English as a Second Language (ESL) – should have a proficiency in written, spoken, listening and reading by the end of the course. Lack of communication skills is one of the most critical drawbacks in most graduates. Hence this is an important aspect of our training programmes and needs to be started as early as possible.
2. Business Communication and Report Writing
3. Public Speaking and Presentation
Technical Skills
1. Scripting Languages – Knowledge of any programming language is critical to gainful employment in the IT sector. Scripting languages are known to be simpler to learn and gain proficiency over. This is one of the most important components of the training programme. [90 hours]
2. Introduction to System Programming – This is a skill that is needed for core research and development activities. A brief introduction to system programming will help the students develop an interest in critical areas which they can then develop independently. [90 hours]
3. Introduction to System Administration – System and Network Administration knowledge can help open new employment opportunities, especially IT related jobs in non-IT sectors. [30 hours]
4. Software Development Life Cycle – An important software engineering skill that will help prepare students understand business requirements of the software industry. This will also ensure that employers also have the confidence about the abilities of the engineers that they are recruiting. [30 hours]
5. Software Testing - This is the entry level job for many of the IT graduates in the IT sector. However, manual testing is a skill that is no longer a highly desirable amongst the employer. We hope to expose the students to automated testing methods that are a critical requirement for the IT companies as on date. [60 hours]
6. Live Project Training – One of the most critical abilities that companies look for in future employees is the ability to work as a part of a team and the experience of having worked on projects of scale. By providing an opportunity to work on a large scale open source project, we will be encouraging students to gain real life and practical experience of the entire software development life cycle from developing to testing to release and maintenance. [6 months]
The trust is also intending to start a training programme for increasing the percentage of women in the workforce in technology firms. Technology field is the highest growth sector and one of the highest paying job market in Karnataka. The girl students of Kalyana Karnataka region, especially those from backward classes and scheduled castes and tribes, find it particularly hard to acquire the skill set to get their first job in the IT sector.
The planned programme PAWIT "Programme for Advancement of Women In Technology" aims to train and skill women under the aegis of our trust.