The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and the West Bengal government on Saturday said they have joined hands to impart leadership training to 1,300 heads of schools.

Heads of government and government-aided primary, secondary, and higher secondary-level educational institutes would be among those who would benefit in batches.

"I am glad that the Paschim Banga Samagra Shiksha Mission (PBSSM), under the School Education Department, has identified and taken the lead in focused intervention in education. This is a timely and necessary step in the right direction," said Director of IIM-Calcutta, Prof Uttam Kumar Sarkar, while inaugurating the first batch of the programme.

West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu stated that the Leadership Development Programme will tap the latent leadership qualities of these institutes' heads, and they will be change agents or "change provocateurs," as famous linguist Noam Chomsky once stated about the role of intellectuals.

The training programme is scheduled to be organised in small batches in December 2021 and January 2022.