Finishing school to be set up for NCC cadets

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: And now, a finishing school for NCC cadets. Stung by the poor success rate of Kerala cadets at entrance tests to armed forces academies, the NCC Kerala and Lakshadweep Directorate proposes to establish an ‘NCC hostel’ for ‘finetuning’ each cadet before he/she appears before interview boards. The NCC hostel will come up in Thiruvananthapuram, said Brigadier Sandeep Kumar, deputy director general, NCC Kerala and Lakshadweep Directorate. The ‘finishing school’ is in addition to three training academies the NCC plans to open in Kerala.  ‘’Our cadets are good, but their awareness about entrance procedures such as that of the Services Selection Board (SSB) is low. They have the IQ, but lack the required soft skills,” Sandeep Kumar said.The NCC Hostel will admit ‘C’ certificate cadets and each batch will be 30 people strong. Part of the training expense will be borne by the cadets. Though 73,000 strong, the NCC Kerala and Lakshadweep Directorate feels its cadets can do better when it comes to admissions to the National Defence Academy (NDA), Officers Training Academy (OTA) and the Indian Military Academy (IMA) or the paramilitary forces. Only between ten and 20 cadets from Kerala make it to the academies each year. In 2010-2011, the number stood at 15. This is excluding the cadets from the state’s lone Sainik School at Kazhakootam.At SSB interviews, candidates from across India are put through gruelling one-to-one interviews, intelligence tests, group discussions, individual and group tasks and physical tests.The Kerala and Lakshadweep Directorate also plans to open training academies in Kollam, Idukki and Wayanad. Each academy, which will come up on ten acres of land, would have accommodation, cooking houses, firing ranges, drill squares and guest houses.Once the academies materialise, the NCC will have greater freedom in conducting annual and national integration camps and other activities. Now the NCC is dependent on educational institutions and the Army for organising mass activities.