There's growth in social service too

Social service, as a career option, is finding an increasing number of takers from the student community.

Institutes that conduct courses in social services, aim to provide an understanding of emerging marketing frameworks and contemporary approaches to growing businesses in rural markets in India. And the salaries are not bad too.

Students who pass out from these institutions bag average salaries around Rs 2.5 lakh per annum, which could go up to Rs 15 lakh per annum once they have two to three years experience.

"Social service, as a discipline, educates students about development strategies that are required in rural areas. It also caters to the human resource requirements of industries such as the information technology sector and non-governmental organisations," explained M H Ansari, head-faculty of rural development, Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS).

Students of social service are offered employment opportunities mainly in areas such as planning and information systems, project management, production management, marketing, entrepreneurship development, human resource development, natural resource development and women's development.

For instance, at XISS placement 2006, all 70 students were placed at some of the most prestigious organisations like CAPART (New Delhi), corporate organisations like NDDB sponsored FES, BASIX, Arvind Mills (Sharda Trust), international organisations like Aid-et_Action, and with national level NGOs like Srijan, SRKPS, CASA, BAIF, Vasundhara, Sakhi, Vidya Bhawan, CINI, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Cashpor. Remunerations offered by these organisations, on an average, ranged between Rs 12,000 and Rs. 18,000 per month.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), on the other hand, started a bachelors' programme in social work four years ago.

The institute's first batch of students who passed out this year, were picked up by prominent NGOs and corporates conducting programmes in rural development. The institute is planning to increase the class strength from 20 students to 30 students from this year.

"The rural service sector has been neglected for a long time. Thus we designed a programme to meet the needs of this sector. We see that the demand for such professional workers in rural areas is only going to increase in the future," says D Gandhimati, Dean, Schools of Rural Development, TISS, Turjapur Campus.

"The development required in most rural areas in India is awareness building. Awareness about the rights they have and the way to exercise them.

Also, rural dwellers need to get rid of their superstitions and need to be educated about different medications for different ailments," said B N Srivastava, acting chairman of consultancy and management development programs (CMDP) at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C), the executive education wing that plans to introduce this year a course on rural marketing programme.

At IIM-C, most social service and rural sector programmes are sponsored by the World Bank or sponsored by non-government organisations that create awareness about AIDS issues.