It was year 2003. Medinipur got divided in two parts just a year back. Undivided Medinipur was globally recognised for the brilliant minds,who gave birth to Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Scientist Mani Bhowmik, revolutionary Khudiram Bose, poet & writer Suryakant Tripathi, sculptor Chintamoni Kar and many more. Medinipur also houses world’s premium Institute like Indian Institute of Technology that nurtures country’s best brain and minds. Like a lamp has shadow along with the lights, Medinipur also had a socially, economically, educationally down trodden area for long which was not much discussed about.
But, some people here, witnessed the same, felt the pain and dreamt of removing the darkness from this under priviledged community who were deprived of basic needs of life and enlighten their lives. Igniting the light in people’s life can only be possible with education. Hence, was established Gopsai Avinandan Sangha with a noble aim of accelerating primarily the life of under priviledged area of the district and several other parts of state as well.
With that aim, Gopsai Avinandan Sangha initiated building a job oriented educational institution in Chandrakona Town which would educate the local people and also arrange the job that would change their economic condition. A vacant non-agricultural Dahiland was earmarked, procured after completing all legal formalities and basic survey work So, the journey began. Journey of making the dream true, journey of struggle.To make the best construction, best engineers and work force were hired from city. But sanctioning of total plan, construction, making infrastructure, providing facilities of an TEI demanded more than the budgeted amount and first obstacle faced of deficit of fund. It was a mammoth task, took lot many sleepless nights but as dream can’t be stopped, Gopsai Avinandan Sangha had to overcome the hindrances. But it was really distressing and agonising to face the impediments created by some local residents, for whom all these struggles were all about. Now we feel that it was indeed a blessing in disguise because that made us start creating the Awareness program …. Awareness for a better life, Awareness for the need of higher education, need of job centric course for youths. Also, we started literacy program amongst their predecessors. Thus, with two years of constant hard work & dedication, passion & patience, toil & moil, the dream came true in 2005 in the form of Gopsai Avinandan Sangha PTTI, the first self-financed primary teachers’ training institute.
The journey of introducing job-oriented education, creating future teachers, zeal of delivering the society a better tomorrow continues. It was felt that the locality and the district lack technically sound workforce whereas it was a demand of the society. To comply with that, Institute of Science and Technology was established in the year 2005 with an aim to impart technical education in form of Engineering and Management. Also, after Primary Teachers’ training it was necessary to introduce Degree course in Teachers’ education. So was established Bengal College of Teacher Education in 2007 with B.Ed and later in 2018 it started M.Ed degree as well.
The effort of years started showing its results; students started coming from various parts of the district, state and neighbouring states. Scarcity of seats in GAS PTTI and enthusiasm of students has encouraged us to open up another Institution for Primary Teachers’’ Training in the year 2012 named as College for Teacher Education. Similarly B.Ed college was in demand of students and that led us to start our journey beyond Chandrakona Town. Considering the ease of communication, transportation and students’ eagerness to pursue B.Ed course, GopsaiAvinandan Sangha established two B.Ed colleges in Bhadutala and Chhoto Dabcha named Anindita College for Teacher Education & Excellent College for Teacher Education respectively. In the same year another B.Ed college, College for Teacher Education was founded in the campus that nestled other institutions as well.
Meanwhile, another horizon of job-oriented education was seen. India has been experiencing shortage of HealthCare professionals and pharmacists. Healthcare delivery system has been undergoing rapid changes creating immense demand for healthcare-oriented people and thus provides great career opportunities.So that was the area which could provide immediate scope of job after the education. Thus, to extend the continuous service towards mankind,P G Institute of Medical Sciences was established in the year 2017 with Pharmacy and then it added Paramedicalin 2020.
Job oriented education in healthcare sector cannot be completed without Nursing education. Moreover, this stream creates scope of job and serves humanity at the same time. So, how could we not explore creating these noble professionals. Anindita Institution of Nursing has been established in the year 2021 to impart nursing education and make the students ready for job immediately after completion of the course.
This is needless to say that this hard work of Gopsai Avinandan Sangha for years not only have offered job oriented education or created awareness program amongst local backward population, specially in tribals, but there are other several contributions which have been enriching societysomeway or other. Let us see some of the aspects as below:
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1. SPREADING EDUCATION AMONGST MAJOR POPULATION CONSISTING OF TRIBALS:
Education is one of the most essential elements for development of human resource and socio-economic conditions of any society.According to the census of India (2011) tribal population share about 8.6% of total population of India and their literacy rate is about 58.96%.West Bengal is one of the popular tribal concentrated states in India having almost 5.79% tribal people of the total population as per census 2011. In West Bengal, Paschim Medinipur is the tribal-dominated district in because of major tribal concentration i.e., 16.61%.
As per the 2011 census, in Paschim Medinipur, the tribal literacy rate is 59.51% whereas, in West Bengal it is 57.92% which is also covering much better compared with West Bengal average tribal literacy rate. In fact, Paschim Medinipur has major tribal literate people which occupy the 17.03% (where male literate 10.14% and female 6.89%) out of the total tribal population of West Bengal.
If we look back through the previous census report, the literacy rate was about 20% less. One of the reasons was recorded as scarcity of educational institution nearby and lack of infrastructure. Exactly this is the area, GopsaiAvinandan Sangha wanted to address and to some extent became successful. Following is the graphical impression that shows the graph of Tribal Education. -
2. INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT : SOCIAL & PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
An institution, that has been housing increasing number of students every year not only just help in educating the people or society, it does help in total development of the locality and thus total development of the society which we call as development of Social Infrastructure. Since incipience the institutions flourished in such a manner that it could seize the attention of government. Since then, significant advancement has taken place in Physical Infrastructure of the locality around the Institution and slowly in the district. Infrastructural development is of paramount importance for achieving sustainable & equitable economic growth through economic through providing access to the basic facilities and amenities that each citizen deserves as a basic requirement for enhancing living standards but people of this locality were deprived of for years. These are necessarily comprised of transportation and communication facilities, water and electricity, roads, water, sanitation, sewerage, electricity where substantial growth were observed and enjoyed. -
3. ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE
When a vast area sees growth in physical infrastructure, it's obvious that economic infrastructure can't stop being developed behind. Needless to mention that this could only happen because of the establishment and progress of the Institutions by GopsaiAvinandan Sangha. With this the locality witnessed a rapid growth primarily in below mentioned areas:
a) Indirect generation of various ways of earning : When number of students started increasing inside the campus, outside local people started renting out part of their houses as Mess. With the time, this has become their steady source of earning.
b) Development of small business opportunity : With the increase in number of people as students and employees, in the area it created a demand for basic necessities like vehicle for local and regular transportation which created work opportunity for the local youths who are not so educated but physically strong enough to provide this particular facility. Also, lot of shops, small to big; i.e. Grocery, Stationary, Vegetable & Fruits vendors, Fish & Meat Vendors, Laundry, Sweet Shops, Bakery, Restaurant etc that provide daily needs, were established and with the time all of these have been upgrading themselves.
c) Commencement of various banking, insurance, credit facility and thus upliftment of the living of local people : This is another area which can't be ignored. Increase of people, increase of local per capita income also became a reason for commencement of new Banks or business growth of the existing banks of the locality. -
4. DIRECT CONTRIBUTRION TO THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY
With the development of social infrastructure comes the responsibility of Economic Development of the society which GopsaiAvinandan Sangha has been performing relentlessly for years.Some of those are humbly presented below:
a) Direct Employment Generation : Spreading education is not possible without teachers; with the establishment of number of colleges, requirement of teachers and educators were also increased. So remarkable number of Employment opportunities for Teachers have been created over years. Running any organisation aptly demands lot of departments to run efficiently and that in turn creates ample number of Employment in all departments. So happened in Gopsai Avinandan Sangha. It has turned an under developed under priviledged barren part of Paschim Medinipur a place of creating and ensuring job scope to people from different areas of the state along with the local educated people at the time when unemployment has remained a matter of concern for all. Along with providing job-oriented educations we could retain and nurture our own talents as Employees; i.e, Associate professors, Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers and many more.
b) Brain Drain and our role : Brain drain has always been a problem everywhere. Midnapore is a known for its brains but lack of opportunity in higher study, technical study and most importantly job-oriented study used to compel the best brains to migrate in other states. But establishment of various colleges for providing job-oriented courses had stopped the brain drain to a notable extent. Also job opportunities created by Gopsai Avinandan Sangha brought back many talents from other places and to some extent migration for job has also been restricted.
c) Turned the Unskilled to Skilled : Poverty was all around in this part of Paschim Medinipur but everyone needs the basic demand of livelihood. So, lot of unskilled youths have been hired and trained so that over the period of time they turn to be skilled workers and earn their livelihood. Not only Paschim Medinipur, in this section we cater to the people of neighbouring districts like Bankura, Purulia, Purba Medinipur, Mediniopur, Burdwan and neighbouring states as well.
d) Construction and It's impact on Economy : This is a major area of Gopsai Avinandan Sangha that has contributed in complete upliftment of the human resources and thus society. With the increase in number of institutions, construction of buildings to house students' classrooms, Library, Laboratory, hostels, staff quarter etc. became a mandatory requirement. So, from an unskilled labour to several levels of architects & Engineers were recruited. Apart from that these tasks in the campus, demanded lot of suppliers, vendors to supply raw material. Though we insisted and preferred to work with local vendors first but not always they were available. So, we had to procure all sort of raw materials from neighbouring district & states. But at the same time local suppliers were created and that has created a great impact in the growth of local unemployed youth and thus economy. We can proudly say that some hundred crores have been poured in the upliftment of the social economy and the effort continues. Thus, considering above facts, we can conclude by opining that the “Social Infrastructure” which was created by Gopsai Avinandan Sangha has been playing a critical role for last 17 years in the process of “ Continuous upliftment of Economical Infrastructure”, through creation of human capabilities and capacity building by enhancing the quality of human life with enhanced financial capabilities, better provision of education, health and recreation facilities and of course augmenting a new social culture which brings mankind together. -
5. SOCIAL CULTURE
Boosting up of economic system through spreading education is not the end of social responsibility; in fact that ignites other social responsibilities like ascertaining social culture and ushering those in various ways, introducing new culture through its continuous support in various social &recreational facilities. As Mr. Jerome Bruner Said, Education must, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.Gopsai Avinandan Sangha has been trying to nurture the culture amongst its students through different celebrations and ceremonies which made the student aware of their roots and make them responsible to carry those forward and spreading in the society. Further, Gopsai Avinandan Sangha has been encouraging various activities in the locality and neighbouring places through sponsorship. That includes,
a) Sports activities like Football tournament, Cricket tournament, Volleyball tournament, Kabaddi competition etc.
b) Festivals of all religion where different cultures congregate, mingle with all from all social strata and experience & exchange their social values and beliefs.
c) Talent search from local youths which includes all circular and co-curricular activities.
d) Felicitation of local talents after board exams. -
6. ESTABILISHING WORK CULTURE :
It was a time when farming & cultivation was the main occupation of the people of this part of Paschim Medinipur. Tribes of these area were mostly daily labourer or sharecropper. Higher Education was a distant dream for many of them. With the time, higher job centric education introduced by Gopsai Avinandan Sangha brought a great transformation in their society. A bigger world got opened up. Lights of education and culture was ignited. People started exploring new job areas. They learnt different kind of works and imbibed work culture in their lives. That's how a total transformation occurred in the lives of many people slowly over the years and mission is still on. Thus, we can conclude as there is a transformation led by education with the hand of Gopsai Avinandan Sangha. The education is recognised as necessary social capital in a society with a market economy in which social position is determined by the level of education of individuals. Despite several social restrictions, obligations, reform of education and several controversial issues, the fact that the leading role has been achieved by Gopsai Avinandan Sangha through spreading education and thus reformed the social structure in significant way is an indisputable fact.The policies of handholding the youths, more precisely under priviledged youths to lead them towards job centric educationwhich has been contributing immensely to the formation of a new identity of Paschim Medinipur and neighbouring statesis stillin place with the mission of mastering the skills needed in the workplace and appropriate knowledge and skills of international standards in the era of globalisation. -
7. PROMOTING 1ST GENERATION HIGHER EDUCATION TO IT'S EMPLOYEES FAMILY :
Gopsai Abhinandan Sangha not only employs educated people, there are many employees who has experienced first generation education but could not continue for long. We feel priviledged to be a part of fulfilment of their wish to see their next generation educated and established. We offer their children higher education at minimalistic expenses. Not only that they are also offered jobs post completion their education.