The first container school created bySafeducate, the education and

training arm of Safexpress, wasunveiled by Prime Minister NarendraModi at the Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhion July 15, 2015 while presenting his ‘Skill India’ pro-gramme, under which,the government intendsto skill 40.2 crore people by 2022.

Safeducate hascome up with anextremely innovativemodel for training peo-ple by joining four con-tainers together. Thecontainers, refurbished and recycled,for developing school structure were earlier being used for logistics purposes.

The first school has a trainingcapacity of 189 students per month,with residential facility for 23 studentsand includes three classrooms, com-puter lab, activity area, recreationarea, library and staff offices.Moreover, these containers are likelego bricks, allowing this institution tohave a flexible and scalable model,

which can be easily replicated in anyother location. The community out-reach of Safeducate could help thecurrent government provide quality

education and skilled training to theremotest corners in the country.

Inaugurating the SafeducateContainer School, Rajiv PratapRudy, Minister of State for SkillDevelopment and Entrepreneurship,Government of India said,“Safeducate has introduced an innovation, which will revolutioniseskill training in the country. Thisunique training platform will definitelymake a significant difference at thegrass root level.”

Showcasing the containerschool, Divya Jain, Founder & CEO,Safeducate said, “We have created

the Safeducate container schools witha professional look and feel. Theseare equipped with all amenities pres-

ent in a regular school andwill provide Safeducate theability to conduct trainings atany location across India.This school can be set upanywhere in a short time,with just the availability of land and electricity connection. The educationalformat and structure of these schools is such

that each district in the country will have the same level of access toquality education.”

Congratulating Safeducate on launching India’s first ContainerSchool, Dilip Chenoy, ManagingDirector & CEO, National Skill Development Corporation(NSDC) said, “There are massive skill gaps prevalent in the industry today. The chain of container schools launched bySafeducate will hugely help in bridg-ing these skill gaps. These schoolswill hugely help in increasing theemployment opportunities for therural youth of the country.”

Logistics as a primary career option

ACADEMY3 6 CARGOTALK A U G U S T 2 0 1 5

Bird Academy organised an interactive session with

Sanjiv Edward, Chairman, TheInternational Air Cargo Association(TIACA) for its students to explain thenitty-gritty of the logistics sector.Edward shared the stage with TVNarayanan, HOD, Bird Academy &Chief Instructor DGR and GlobalAVSEC Instructor, IATA; VK Bhatia,Vice President – e-Cargo, BirdGroup; Anil Malhotra, Director,Transmec Group and B M Singh,Director, Silk Route Logistics.

Bhatia stressed upon few critical areas such as single point contact, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)and to see thelogistics industryas a promisingprofession.

Motivatingthe students,Edward said, “It’sbeen a long jour-ney and I wouldlike to reiterate thatthe key to delivering quality productis dedication and concentration. This

is the first time that an Indian hastaken the responsibility of an interna-tional association (TIACA) and it is amatter of pride for our country. Andresponsibility comes with accounta-bility. Since I am looking for a globalassociation with global agenda, myfocus will be on how I can use the

global organisation to integrateworld’s air cargo supply chain.”

He touched upon issues suchas non standardisation, lack of tech-nology, to name a few. “If we look atthe sea, we can see the drasticchange in the shipping industry; few years backconsignmentfrom India to

America used totake 45 days andnow it takes 21days. The regret is we use thefastest mode of

transport, that is, air but lose efficiency on ground.”

Edward shares the growth history of Delhi airport to showcasethe importance of concentration,determination and hard work to achieve success in life. While

sharing the struggle and achieve-ments of Delhi airport, he said,“When we took over the Delhi airport,we were just operators, but we thought of doing something different and got it privatised. Wedecided to set our targets high toexist among the best in the world. We

started looking at other possibilities around the world and took an example of global hubs such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, US, to name a few.”

“With this, we realised what isneeded to create a hub of operationalexcellence, good network in the air and on the ground, and goodinfrastructure. Six years down theline, things started improving.Further, to cut down costs and toreduce time, we looked at connectiv-ity. From an airport perspective, westarted informing airlines about theconcept of being connected withmanufacturing hubs that is Air FreightStation (AFS).

With flow of goods, flow of information is equally important, thusboth need to be coordinated. If we have fast flow of goods but information is not reaching on timethen it’s a waste. Hence the good IT system is required,” he explained.

“We had a clear vision to be the number one airport in India.In 2010, we put the strategy in place and now we are the number one airport in the country,”Edward added.

CT BUREAU

Bird Academy invited Sanjiv Edward, Chairman, TIACA, to interact with students of the academy to know moreabout the challenges and opportunities of the air cargo sector.

First school in a container: Safeducate

CT BUREAU

With an aim to provide skill-based education at minimal costs to all parts of the country, Safeducate has comeup with an innovative plan of recycling scrap containers and using them as schools. The first container schoolwas inaugurated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the ‘Skill India’ programme.