Meira Kumar, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, has proposed the development of a University for Artisans. The university would allow artisans and craftsmen to attend formal training through which ideas and knowledge of traditional Indian techniques and crafts can be shared.
Speaker Meira Kumar has pitched for a university for the “working class” to save traditional knowledge and skills which are facing extinction.
She has taken up with UPA government the idea of “labour university” catering to the class which is “repository of high skills” but does not have regular university degrees.
“It will be a university for the working class and artisans. I have taken it up with the government and am hoping for a positive response,” she said. Sources said a green signal to the proposal was likely.
The concept is to put traditional knowledge and craftsmenship in a structured and formal learning centre. It will be without the mandatory requirement of adegree for a teacher to teach there but will fetch the students degrees for what they have learnt. “We have a fabulous tradition of beautiful crafts — wood, leather, wool, silk — be it ancient India or medieval period or modern era. But a cloud hangs over their survival as everything has become degree-centric. There is knowledge beyond reading and writing.
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