With every focus of today's corporate and IT sector revolving around productivity the need to produce job ready graduates has become the need of the hour. With enormous emphasis on it, practical exposure becomes a second school to what is being learnt at institutions.
IIT's and niche research-based institutes keep their syllabus at par with industry requirements. These institutes allow students to go beyond their curriculum to pursue interests other than what the syllabus prescribes. Some students work with their professors on industrial experimental projects/internships while others focus only on the syllabus which is usually based on centralized boards and universities' stipulations. The students who look beyond the syllabus are usually more job-ready than those who focus on the syllabus alone.
The onus to ensure job-preparedness should not be on institutes only; industry should participate equally in developing required talent especially at local levels. Industry barons should partner with local institutes and not just the creamy layer institutes to develop talent.
The focus of any institution beyond the syllabus should be on developing partnerships with the industry by doing research projects and internship projects with them. They also should focus on the subject matter to make students aware and responsible citizens. Around 10-15 percent of the education period of the students should focus on social studies. This helps students to evaluate and interpret challenges beyond the canonical boundaries of education, which is one of the essential qualities of good leaders.
The major criteria for evaluating an institute before deciding to hire students are by checking if they have a well-rounded syllabus. The institute can also build its reputation by building research projects with the industry. It is also fundamental for an institute to have an industry bonding by developing internship programs that benefit the students.
There are two big initiatives followed to make students job ready. The first scenario is wherein the industry starts to build educational institutes or patronizes institutes to meet the shortfall of the talent pool. The second scenario is how industries are investing in research and setting incubational projects with the institutes.
The current opportunities for students have a come a long way since the times of the dotcom market of the 90's. The outsourcing financial market has later swayed many of the students away from core engineering jobs. The core engineering market suffered but has survived as the earlier demand waned off. The hype tilted the demand-supply balance and core engineering research suffered till the nemesis of the banking industry. Presently the educational research and student interests are back to core engineering. Many core Indian and global IT companies have their R&D and IT development centers respectively, in India. These companies need talent to grow their market and the present graduates can help fulfill the requirement.
Changes, Requirements and focal shift
In today's flat world, research and knowledge cannot be quarantined with regard to the market shifts. Institutes cannot afford to be rigid about their history. They have to maintain their syllabus and change as per the industry requirement. They must focus on research labs with the help of industry and build collaborative programs before setting up any academic calendar. To meet this requirement the staff need to align teaching methods to impart knowledge as per industry requirements and, be more open to learning new things.
With ways to improve the pedagogy institutes need to collaborate with industry and have staff that is ready to unlearn and learn new things to meet new challenges. This would enable them to revive their teaching methods as it would have a positive yet long lasting impact on students' minds. Consequently there would be a much prepared pipeline of students who would come out seeking jobs and their abilities would demand a position than being requested for. These are the type of candidates that are required to set the growing graph in the ascending curve.
As told to Waheeb Ulla.
Sanjay Asane
He is a skilled creative and results oriented professional with an entrepreneurial mind-set and passion for crafting high performance teams and peak performing organizations. He has recruited employees professionally through Job Portals, Head Hunters, Campus Hiring and contact with Professors at the campuses for research students.
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