Celebrations have been held to mark 55 fruitful years of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) on Monday.
The Embassy of India in Maldives had held a function to mark the day at Hotel Jen in capital city Malé which was attended by Guest of Honor, Minister of Higher Education Dr. Ibrahim Hassan, Ambassador of India to Maldives Sanjay Sudhir, several government officials from both Maldives and India as well as ITEC alumni.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dr. Hassan revealed that 55 long productive years have passed since ITEC came into being.
While the initiative has created possibilities of social and economic participation as well as progress through cooperative action and enterprise, Dr. Hassan stated that the government salutes the initiative in becoming a recognized player for technical and economic development in the region on a global scale.
Further, while ITEC is the Indian government’s flagship capacity-building programme, Dr. Hassan stated that the role of traditional friendship, mutual trust as well as cooperation has been observed.
Adding that these factors helped us remain resilient development partners in the race of countless changes in the international ambiance, Dr. Hassan stated that the programme is an “exemplary moral” of generating good will and substantive cooperation which is led by the composition of aspirations and a solid economic foundation.
He highlighted that ITEC is a vehicle for “promoting” sustainable development as a value-driven and locally adoptable organization.
The evolving economic changes call for up-scaling and retraining our labor force. Government places utmost priority in human resource development, to enhance participation in the economic growth of this country. Hence, the Ministry of Higher Education has expanded the polytechnic facilities and further, planned to set up training institutes in different parts of the country. Our ambitious targets can only be met through regional cooperative programs such as ITEC”Higher Education Minister Dr. Ibrahim Hassan
Speaking at the function, Ambassador Sudhir stated that relations between India and Maldives are observably “better than ever before in the past”.
Adding that President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have met four times since November 2018 and Foreign Ministers of both countries have met numerous times as well, Ambassador Sudhir highlighted that the landscape of bilateral relations has been dotted with institutional arrangement.
In addition, the Ambassador stressed that capacity building is the "key pillar" to the bilateral relations since the establishment of relations in 1965. Since December 2018, this pillar has become “bigger and stronger”, he added.
In the last 11 months or so about 15 MoUs have been signed. And it has been our consistent effort to move this substance of the MoUs into concrete action. So that they take a life of their own beyond the paper on which they are signed and I wish to thank you all for the support in helping us in that process. PM Modi announced 1,000 capacity building slots over the next five years during President Solih’s state visit to India in December 2018. These slots are in addition to the existing slots. Which means that what was earlier 50 slots has actually increased about five times to 250 slots. Further, this is in addition to most of the MoUs which we have signed and which have their own capacity building provisions. So if It is an MoU in Civil services or one in customs or other such areas, they have their own capacity building and we try our best to keep those capacity building slots outside the numbers which they are signed for ITEC.”Ambasador Sanjay Sudhir
Also, India gets to share its own development experience with Maldives through capacity building opportunities and help Maldives reap the demographic dividend that we learned to reap after many years of success as well as mistakes, said Sudhir.
ITEC covers a huge range of courses ranging from media and journalism to science and technology, culture, education, human resources, management, economics and a diverse set of courses to choose from covering several human capacity building challenges.
Under ITEC the courses last from 5 days to weeks or maybe a few months and beneficiaries of ITEC are 161 countries, with 250 slots allocated for Maldives.
Interested individuals may browse the courses, details, dates, qualifications under which having five years of prior experience is also included, through ITEC’swebsite.
Further, a list of “successful applicants” will be forwarded to the Ministry of Higher Education or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs every month. Applications are required to be submitted at the Embassy of India in Maldives at least 30 days before the course begins.
