The Industrial Training Centre

A batch of our youngsters leave the Industrial Training Centre to seek their fortune as summer begins each year. This opportunity was beyond their wildest dreams when they joined two years earlier. Their confident bearing and hopeful eyes draw strength from Boys Town’s reputation for excellence in training. Each of them carry the institution’s imprint of quality, discipline and dedication to work. Our alumni wear this imprint as a certificate of their ability to adapt and survive in a changing work environment. This certificate of sustainability is widely known and sought out for its worth. However, the essence of sustainability and growth is most strongly exhibited by those students, who start from humble beginnings to nurture successful of their own.

TRADES

The varied innate talent of our boys are channelized into skills which industry needs. There are six broad trade groups offered to students today : metal working, carpentry, fabrication, painting, printing and electrical work.

The first few weeks in any of the departments is given on exercise pieces until the basic skills are picked up, and then each fresher is assigned to a senior trainee. Both of them work on jobs which Boys Town undertakes for the outside world.

Printing :
The Printing section is famous as a professional press in the city and outside. Many government institutes and industrial undertakings utilize the press for their work. The press works on a photo-offset process equipped a photographic reproducing and scanning machine, a computer composing centre and a manual binding section in order to be fully equipped to complete the jobs it undertakes. Mr. Sudershan, one of our most experienced resource persons, has worked in the institute press for 35 years. He remembers the days when the electronic lino-type machines were developed for the first time in the country in Boys Town.

Fabrication :
In the case of Fabrication, Painting and Carpentry, the material is often supplied by Boys Town for the execution of customer orders. Band saw is used to slice logs into planks which are used for the carpentry work. Boys Town invariably used Burma Teak, sourcing logs from far off ports like Tuticanin and mangalore to minimize costs. The work, needless to say, is of a solid and enduring quality.

Metal working :
Currently the machining operations are turning, milling, grinding and shaping. In these trades, the trainees gain experience in value-addition jobs normally executed on material supplied by our customers. Under new projects the introduction of CNC milling machines ad Lathes for fast and non-repetitive operations with minimal setting times.

Electrical work :
The electrical training is given in housewiring, industrial wiring, machine rewinding and minor repair. Our boys undergo training in-house up to a point in a laboratory / workshop equipped with control panels, experimental machines, etc. Once the boys acquire a skill, they go off to customer sites and work on professional wiring jobs for school buildings, laboratories and factories. This process gives them that experience and confidence to deal with the special idiosyncrasies that are part of a normal wiring job depending on the age of the building, the kind of material used for its construction, the style of roofing and hence the points of purchase available for the wiring, etc.

Carpentry :
Carpentry was the frist vocation introduced into boys town ITC. The carpentry section is updated with the latest machinery and job works from Government and private firms are undertaken. Then trainees here are trained to handle things with expertise.

Computer :
The computer centre for training handicapped students works at providing children with handicaps, skills in fending for themselves and sustaining a livelihood in the new environment made available through the spread of computer technology.

The training in these trades changes in a dynamic manner to address emerging technology and market demand. In addition, new trades are introduced into the curriculum to meet changing need patterns.

Changing Trades

In the first stages of the printing trade training at Boys Town, manual compositing was done on a letter press. This was followed by the first electronic linotype machines in the country in the 1970’s.

Today, the printing process operates through computer composing, a photo-offset process for high-speed high volume, and high quality output for large customers.

Appropriate Technology :
On a less formal note, we have entered the appropriate technology arena with the design of solar water-heaters of 200 litres and 500 litres capacity which can be manufactured in the rural areas. We have also begun to teach the manufacture of mud-blocks for house building, hand pump repair, low-cost housing, installation and manufacture of smokeless chulhas, etc. The objective is to make an impact on the optimal utilization of scarce resources in the interests of a sustainable livelihood. More than to gran roof women leaders from many states have been trained in the processes. As of now however, these new technologies are not yet on our curricular anvil, since the markets have not yet stabilized.

On Site Training :
Our boys have the unique opportunity to extend their practical training on customer sites wherever possible, in order to round off their education with an experience of conditions on the ground at different locations. In electrical wiremanship, this means that the students go to different government schools and colleges which have been our long-standing clientele, in order to lay out a new, or refurbish, electrical wiring for class rooms and laboratories. Students also work on turnkey computer installations, to gain experience of fabrication, computer installation, furniture supply and power and communication wiring, all integrated in one site.