Commenting on the occasion, Deepak Pental, vice chancellor, University of Delhi, said, "There is a huge demand for our young talent not only in India but also in many western countries. Increase in ageing talent and the shortage of young talent have led western countries to raise their education level so high that those who are not very bright can also get into higher education; they were not doing this 20 years back. They were very selective but now they require our young talent."
Pental further added that private institution should be open for more regulation, and government tools should not be used to kill private entrepreneurship but to encourage good practices in entrepreneurs. Pental said, "If any talent from any institute is good in teaching/research, then his expenditure should be funded by the government."
Rajdeep Sahrawat, vice president, NASSCOM, shared that although there is immense talent in India, the need of the hour is to make sincere effort to exploit that potential.
Sahrawat continued, "We are blessed with the largest young population in the world. India produces highest number of graduates in the world. I don't know about other industry but Indian IT industry India faces high-quality talent shortage. Only 25 per cent of the total graduates get employed directly from the campus; academia should increase the quality of education. Industry is creating a corpus to fund education in computer science but that is just a drop in the ocean. We need to make many more such efforts."
Replying to a question on students making struggle for getting a chance to work on a project, Sahrawat pointed out that time given to the students by a particular institute is very less and it should be increased.
"When a student come for projects in the company, he requires some initial training. He is normally given 2-month time. By the time we train him, he gets ready to go back to the college; thus the effort made by the company gets wasted. Institutes should give him at least 6 months instead of just two to work with the industry. In this way, he will get an opportunity to work with the industry for longer time; the company will also get time to invest in that student. Giving a full semester for internship would solve this issue, and institutes can mark the student on the basis of his project report."
SAITA-EFY report calls for strengthening the education ecosystem and bringing all stakeholder groups together for dialogue and discussion. The paper recognises that the Indian education system produces manpower with basic functional skills and not industry-specific skills, hence, there is a need to strengthen ties between the industry and academia and translating into reality the conceptual outcomes of research. The paper also highlights the need of continuous monitoring and evaluation mechanism for education delivery, which will keep the benchmarks high. The paper adds that developments in the global economic scenario and emerging opportunities in business and lifestyle have given birth to a range of career options, which promise to emerge as careers of tomorrow.
While speaking on the occasion, Sairee Chahal, co-founder, SAITA Consulting, quipped, “It is of utmost significance that all stakeholder groups within the educational ecosystem communicate and co-operate in order to service the growing needs of economy and society. The changes in the socio-economic fabric need to be reflected in the education and training systems as well. In this context, there is a dire need to connect the various points in the human capital universe. India is at a unique phase of nation building and adequate education and training effort will go a long way in solidifying socio-economic development efforts.”
EFY's Technical Education Guide 2008 is a complete technical educational directory. The database of the guide includes course-wise and state/city-wise listings of technical educational institutes in India, besides the alphabetical main directory offering all the relevant information about them.
According to Ramesh Chopra, managing director, EFY Group, “Edutech Expo is the ideal platform to release the EFY's Technical Education Guide 2008. This is the fourth edition of Educational Guide, and we are sure it will achieve tremendous success. Moreover, we have ensured that prominent technical colleges and institutes are present at the expo.”
“Over 150 institutions from Bhopal, Dehradun, Jaipur, Kapurthala, Haldwani, Jodhpur, Alwar, Thane, Roorkie, Ambala and even from as far afield as Chennai will be participating, and several will be offering spot admissions. Our endeavour is to ensure that maximum number of students and parents visit the fair and opt for institutes in the region. Hence, the fair is timed within a week after the declaration of the class XII results of both ICSE and CBSE boards,” Chopra added.
EduTech's uniqueness lies in the fact that it is focussed on technical education exclusively – and therefore has a defined target of students that have decided to pursue a technology career. To enable the youngsters and their parents take an informed decision, the fair will host seminars and presentations by HR heads/CEOs/marketing heads of leading technology companies – thus giving them an insight into what the industry will require after 4-5 years when they pass out of the institutes.
This year, the Expo will witness speakers from Techtribe, Sun Microsystems, HP India, Prosem Technology, Delta Energy Systems, Perrot Systems and others. Microsoft, one of the giants in the IT domain, will be one of the participants of at the event. Well-known career counsellors will be on hand to offer guidance on what skill-sets and characteristics the students will need to develop to build a career in technology space.
Edutech Expo 2008 will also witness seminars on education loans conducted by PNB, animation sessions conducted by Toonz and Dream Zone, on foreign education by Kangaroo, on electronics by Jetking, on management by AIMA, on IT careers by New Horizons. Many more such exciting sessions would give students a clear perspective on various career opportunities in the technology field. |
