INDIA: St. Joseph’s Industrial Training Institute develops partnership with Motul Atlantic Lubricants and Specialties to establish a 1,100 square foot training center
(MissionNewswire) The Salesian-run St. Joseph’s Industrial Training Institute Don Bosco Kurla, located in the city of Mumbai within the Indian state of Maharashtra, signed a memorandum of understanding with Motul Atlantic Lubricants and Specialties to establish a 1,100 square foot training center for students to learn how to work on and repair two-wheeler vehicles.
Training conducted in the center will qualify youth to enter the motorcycle/scooter mechanics industry. Year-long courses will include on-the-job training at two-wheeler authorized service centers across Mumbai and its suburbs.
At the inauguration of the new training center, several members of the Motul Atlantic Lubricants and Specialties leadership team were in attendance including Jiten Goswami, chairman, Pritam Goswami, head of marketing, Sandeep Bhat, director, and Ashwin Balwally, country head of India Motul. Father Colbert da Silva, rector and director of St. Joseph’s Industrial Training Institute, welcomed those at the gathering and expressed his gratitude for the new partnership.
Chairman Goswami noted how impressed he was with the enthusiasm of the trainees to become skilled technicians and entrepreneurs of their own service stations. Balwally provided a history of Motul and familiarized those in attendance with the Motul School of Learning in France. He thanked the training institute’s management for their enthusiasm and for executing Motul’s dream of instituting a similar center for learning in India. He noted his desire to certify the trainees and trainers of Motul Center for Learning in India via the Motul School of Learning in France.
“There is a huge skills gap in the automotive repair industry in India,” says Father Mark Hyde, director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “This partnership is meant to address the rise in youth unemployment while providing a skilled employable workforce. Students will now have access to training and education that will lead directly to long-term stable employment.”
The collaboration with Motul is not the first developed by the Salesian Institute. Salesian missionaries have already established 14 similar partnerships. The most recent being a memorandum of understanding with Tata Hitachi, one of the leading mining, construction and agricultural machinery manufacturers in India, that certifies St. Joseph’s Industrial Training Institute to become the first institution in India to offer a dealer service induction training program. The program consists of 65 days of training for groups of 20 auto-tech trainees.
The institute’s instructors will be trained by Tata Hitachi with phase one involving basic training at the Salesian Institute. The program’s curriculum has been designed to allow for the cut sections of all machinery to be installed on the premises. Phase two consists of 20 days of on-the-job training at the Tata Hitachi training facility in Dharwad, Karnataka.
The aim of the program is to create a pool of talented and skilled professionals for the industry while ensuring that youth from disadvantaged backgrounds have opportunities for gaining stable employment. New trainees are also made aware of possible career progression as well as the various training initiatives and opportunities available with Tata Hitachi. Joint certification and placements are assured for successful candidates.
For poor youth who lack access to education and skills training, risk of exploitation in the labor market increases as does their chance of continuing to live in conditions of poverty. The current automobile repair industry in India is characterized by an inadequately skilled workforce and a lack of professional training opportunities for repair and diagnostics. The training program will enhance the technical abilities and employability of its trainees.
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Sources:
UNICEF – India
