MUMBAI, DECEMBER 21, 2009: The DB Tech Board of the Mumbai Province held a meeting on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at the Provincial House, Matunga. The meeting was chaired by Fr. Ajoy Fernandes, Vice Provincial and attended by those in-charge of the various Technical Training Centres in the province. Addressing the members at the start of the meeting, Fr. Ajoy Fernandes said: “Our commitment to extend a technical education to the marginalized is well on the way. We now need to consolidate our efforts to carry this movement forward.” Focusing on the MES programme which is being promoted in the province he stated that: “Carrying the MES programme forward will give us the satisfaction of making a contribution to the lives of needy youth to help them stand on their feet. It will also help us to arrive at a high degree of proficiency in terms of the professional training we impart; and help us in our efforts to attain self-sufficiency”. He complimented the Development Office for fulfilling its commitment to obtain the VTP registration for our training centres. St. Joseph’s, Kurla; Bosco Boys, Borivli; Don Bosco, Chinchwad; and Don Bosco Community College, Ahmednagar have already received the official registration from the government, while the process is on for Don Bosco, Narukot. The centres at Alirajpur and Karjat will be taken up for registration once they reach the eligibility criteria in terms of infrastructure and required number of students.
Some of the major issues taken up for discussion during the meeting were: setting up hostels and technical training infrastructure; developing pedagogically arranged modules on the basis of the MES syllabus; sharing best practices among the centres; imparting soft skills such as Communicative English and Life Skills; networking with other organizations and institutions to enrol students for the courses we offer; scaling up the number of students in our institutes and fixing definite targets for the future in terms of student numbers; promoting the MES programme among other religious institutes and NGOs in order to extend training and employment to the greatest number of needy youth.