The community college is an alternative system of education, aimed at helping the poor- urban, rural and tribal - and women to find gainful employment in collaboration with the local industry and the community. The system is ‘of’ the community, ‘for’ the community and ‘by’ the community to produce responsible citizens. The community college promotes job-oriented, work related, skill-based and life-coping education. A community college is a comprehensive institution of higher education, offering educational programs at post-secondary school level, which includes courses in occupational and technical fields and continuing education, to meet the workforce needs of the region in which the college is located and also offering ‘bridge’ courses. The community college is the need of the hour. It provides education for a livelihood. It responds to the challenges of exclusion and elimination from the formal system, mismatch between education and employment capability, poverty, and problems of unemployment, under-employment, unemployability and school dropouts. The unique achievement of the community colleges has been the empowerment of the socially, economically and educationally backward sections of society in the last 10 years. The following measures are recommended.:-
- National recognition for the community college system is required.
- Vertical mobility of the community college students through the Open Universities and conventional Universities with the three tier system: Diploma, Associate degree and Degree.
- Funds, Stipends and Scholarships should be provided to the disadvantaged sections of society especially SC/ST/BC/MBC/Women/Minorities.
- Central Placement Cells should be set up in Collaboration with Confederation of Indian Industries and Chambers of Commerce.
- Community Colleges should be established in educationally backward districts with emphasis on soft skills development. Setting up the Community colleges can go a long way for correcting the regional imbalance in the system of Higher Education
- Institutions of repute can adopt neighboring villages and open Community Colleges to promote vocational/skills training and pre-college training/bridge courses.
