Rural Institutes Forum (R.I.F.) is a platform of NCRI to develop support mechanisms for Rural Institutes and to coordinate and facilitate their growth and development. It is primarily responsible for establishing formal relationships with different Rural Institutes.
The concept of the Rural Institutes is the blend of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of education, Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to voluntary rural reconstruction and Dr. Radhakrishnan’s blue print of the Rural University. Rural Institutes as educational, extension service and research agencies in India were conceived by the Government of India with objective of developing them as instruments of rural transformation.
RIF is one of the building blocks of NCRI’s mission mode functioning, plays a pivotal role in identifying, assessing, coordinating and networking with the potential Rural Institutes and developing the content of all these institutions and designing the support mechanisms.
Approach:
- Developing strategic vision.
- Mapping of Services
- Looking for best practices
- Coordinating discussions on key issues
- Making recommendations
- Sharing information
- Fostering collaborations
- Undertaking special projects
Functions of Rural Institutes Forum:
- Develop support mechanisms for Rural Institutes and to coordinate and oversee their development.
- Developing curriculum for of Rural Institutes
- Encourage field oriented courses of Rural Institutes.
- Advice Government of India on all such matters pertaining to Rural Institutes as may be referred to it from time to time.
Rural Institute:
A Rural Institute will be characterised by the following features:
- It will be multi-disciplinary in nature with the following components/functional area
s
- Education
- Micro-level Planning
- Agriculture
- Health
- Natural Resource Management & Geo Info-system
- Rural Industries
- Co-operatives and Rural Enterprises
The Rural Institute will have professional courses to create the techno-managerial cadres needed for the development of the specific region, especially with regard to entrepreneurship.
The Rural Institute will use a learning paradigm that is practice-based, with problem solving orientation.
The Rural Institute will take the responsibility of development of a well defined region and will be a facilitator of development in the social, economical, self-governance and cultural dimension and will carry out these programmes in collaboration with the local self-governance structure.
The new pattern of Rural University will be consolidated and developed on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi’s revolutionary ideas on education so as to take up the challenges in the… transformation of rural areas. - (5.2; National Policy on Education, 1986)
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