Industry And Academia Connect Necessary

Rajul Garg, Director, Sunstone Business School talks about his budget expectations for education

sector – “Industry needs to be incentivized through CSR spends to connect more tightly with

academia“.

Excerpt from article published at Business World Online

What are the main hurdles in the education sector?

The higher education sector in particular has struggled over the last few years due to

sluggish economic growth. The currents of change have propelled the sector toward, or

onto, one rock after another.

Education financing is still very weak in our country: A shortage of financial resources for

higher education is amongst the key concerns in this sector. The paper notes that only

approximately 18 per cent of all government education spending or 1.12 per cent of GDP

is spent on higher education, while the requirement is for these levels to increase to 25

per cent of the total education.

Employability: The Indian education system on the whole is not aligned to the skill and

manpower needs of the market. Skills shortage across sectors is accompanied by high

levels of graduate unemployment, highlighting the need to include employment-linked

modules in courses. In addition to job-related skills, graduates are often reported to be

lacking adequate soft-skills such as communication and inter-personal skills.

How can these be addressed by the upcoming budget?

We have a large youth population coming out of our schools and in UG. The economy

needs to find a way to provide employment opportunities at a larger scale. One per cent

additional growth in economy creates one million new jobs. Both manufacturing and

service sectors needs to demonstrate growth. We also need to find ways for financial

institutions to provide much easier access to loans, specially for higher education.

Students need to feel confident that they can study on their own, without making their

parents sell their land and property. Also, industry needs to be encouraged more to

participate in academia. This will help bridge the employability gap.

What would be the recommendations for the government in this sector?

There are high expectations from the government and industry for improving the quality

of higher education in India.

Industry And Academia Connection: Industry and Academia connect necessary to

ensure curriculum and skills in line with requirements. Industry needs to be

incentivized maybe through CSR spends and other methods to connect more tightly

with academia. Only then can students become employable

Encourage New Models In Technology Led Education: There is a lot of

willingness to innovate in the new professionals in the method of teaching itself in

education. These new methods are far more student centric, lower cost, higher in

reach and higher in quality. The government needs to encourage these new

initiatives and find a way to regularize / accredit them so that they can gain

credibility. The accreditation regime today follow a very traditional approach

What can be done to boost growth in the education sector?

India is today one of the fastest developing countries of the world with the annual

growth rate going above 9 per cent. In order to sustain that rate of growth, there is need

to increase both quality and quantity of students coming out of our higher institutes. This

can happen with a greater focus on education financing, industry/academic connect and

greater use of technology and innovative models of teaching.