South Africans, who participated in the India's ITEC programme that provides free training to candidates from developing countries in diverse areas, have praised the country's advancement in the arena of science, technology and innovation research.
The Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation Programme (ITEC) is a bilateral programme of assistance fully funded by the government of India, enabling candidates from developing countries to participate in training courses in the premier training institutes of India with the primary purpose to "train" or build capacity among India's partner countries.
It is a visible symbol of India's role and contribution to South-South co-operation which constitutes a fundamental pillar of country's foreign policy and diplomacy.
The participants from South Africa, who underwent the recently held ITEC programme, said that they benefited after receiving training in diverse areas that included corporate governance, running elections, advanced statistical analysis and telecommunications.
"My 10 months in India was truly an eyeopener," Cavin Andrew Tolman, statistical assistant, said during a function at the Indian High Commission in Pretoria on Tuesday.
He said that Indian students were quite advanced in terms of pursing their doctoral research.
"It was amazing to find that Indians were studying for doctorate degrees at just 23 years of age, and also that they were so highly advanced in statistics that many of them are in top positions in this field in Europe and the US," Tolman said.
Kim Kresvelder, an election manager at the South African Independent Electoral Commission, said witnessing the actual electoral planning process for millions of voters in India was an extremely gratifying experience.
"It was really an eye-opener to see that in a country that is so large and has such a huge population, that they have such a flawless and seamless process in terms of registering their electorate," Kresvelder said.
The participants praised India's advancement in the arena of science and technology.
"I didn't realise that India was this far ahead in science, technology and innovation research. India has shown that you don't even have to be a developmental nation to be a leader," Nandi Madiba, chairperson of the Board at the provincial Eastern Cape Development Corporation, said.
Thabo Mahlase, who works for the provincial government in Gauteng province, said: "Learning about the technologies used in the telecommunications industry in India will benefit us at the government in South Africa because here we mostly outsource our services and we don't do things on our own, so now we can do our own things ourselves".
Indian High Commissioner Ruchira Kamboj congratulated the participants and said that it was very encouraging to note from the comments of some of the participants that India was moving in the right direction with the ITEC programme.
Kamboj emphasised that the ITEC programme was open to both the public and private sector, with a number of positions reserved for South African citizens.
Responding to calls for Indian trainers to also come to South Africa to assist groups here, Kamboj said : "This will start happening from the new fiscal year in April next year".
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