Skilling, Upskilling and Reskilling have been the benchmarks for Assam. Leaders from Microsoft, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, AICTE and various universities not just from Assam but across the country share their two cents
The theme was ‘Education & Skill Development’ and the panelists comprised leaders from big companies and reputed universities and Govt of India institutions. Skilling has been the talking point in India and educational institutions are places that can propel change. Assam in particular is keen in taking skilling forward. Leaders spoke on what it takes to achieve and what needs to be done as far as Assam is concerned. Here are excerpts from the panel discussion:
Shri Sumit Mukherjee, Senior Leader, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd said, “We already have signed an MoU with Assam Skill Development Mission (ASDM). More than 3,000 students have already benefited out of this scheme & we are looking to help at least 20,000 more. At Microsoft our mission is to empower every individual and every organization on the earth to achieve more. The cloud, AI /ML are those buzzwords where the world is evolving. The more you learn about it the more you want to learn about it.” He also added, “Security is one aspect which is evolving every day.”
SK Barua, Senior Consultant, National Skill Development Fund (NSDF), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Former MD, NRL was of the opinion that investments are happening in the northeast for which we need manpower & skill. We have kept our students ready in Assam and we have private sectors coming up in the region. Assam and northeast is an ideal market setup for Skill. The ministry of skill development is ideally promoting Assam and North East skills. So it will be our endeavor to promote Assam’s skill and development.
To make our country the knowledge capital or skill capital of the world we need to do lots of initiatives. One of the initiatives which we have taken is NEP 2020 said Dr Buddha Chandrashekar, Chief Coordinating Officer, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). He added, “The world became more knowledge driven and skill driven and every business in the world is changing, which means our skilling capability needs to be based on upskilling and reskilling in a faster manner. We are concentrating on skilling, upskilling and reskilling and our goal is to upskill 40 million students in the next 5 years.
We have come up with the internship initiative where the student is studying in the college but at the same time he or she can do a virtual or physical internship program. We have created a National Internship Portal where we on boarded 75,000 plus companies that are giving internship opportunity to our students where the students not only acquiring the knowledge from institutes but also they are acquiring the job related skills. In the last 1 and half years we have given more than 25 lakhs internship opportunities.
Prof. Jiten Hazarika, Vice-chancellor, Dibrugarh University said, “We are thinking of some industry collaborations too. We have already started the certification program for the Korean Language so that our students can learn and gain employment in Korea.” From the next academic year we are also going to start oil reeling technology for that we are going to sign a MoU with the oil industry- oil India limited Duliajan. We are also going to start one diploma course in PCPL. The other skill based courses which are going on are tea and agro studies. We have already started the post graduate diploma program in Tea Technology and Tea management with 100 percent placement.
Dr. G Aghila Director, NIT Tiruchirappalli – All the universities have a large responsibility on their shoulders. The institutes have to think about sharing their resources. NIT Tiruchirappalli offers Tamil language as a course and we brought the Tamil teacher from our neighbor institute. All the institutes are conducting their technical and cultural festivals. Students from one state can join the festivals in the institutes of other states. Sharing and understanding the cultural activities and ideas, human resources and all the other infrastructure of other institutes definitely upskill students. If institutes will contribute to this initiative of the government of India, definitely the nation will reach to the another level of Atma Nirbhar Nation.
Hoonar Janu, Partnerships Lead, Government Affairs and Public Policy, Google India – The real challenge what we have is a large economy in technology is changing so quickly that if somebody is getting skilled today the big challenge is by the time they will get graduate, externally things might have changed so much that they might find that their skills are out of date. There are no simple answers but in our own humble capacity Google is making the effort. We have such a large demographic dividend the opportunity really becomes very big.
Prof. (Dr.) YSR Murthy, Vice Chancellor, RV University Karnataka – If you look at the NEP 2020 is a paradigm shift from science, technology, engineering mathematics stemming to steam by integrating arts. RV University is a new age university for liberal education. RV University currently has six interdisciplinary schools and the very first school we started was the school of liberal science and arts. We provide the foundation courses in the first year. Where students get the taste of a little bit of sociology, philosophy and mathematics and other subjects. They also get to learn how to read and write and a number of other skills.
Today as we all know one needs to reinvent the career, this learning of liberal writing can lead to 14 interesting occupations like screenwriter, web writer, technical writer, fictional writer, not fictional writer and many other writing occupations.
Prof. GD Sharma, Vice Chancellor, USTM (University and Science & Technology), Meghalaya – We are the only private university who has got grade A in its first cycle of assessment. It also got NIRF ranking in 150 to 200 which is the only private university in North East which is having this NIRF Rate. Our main aim is quality.
After this NEP 2020 the UGC has given the number of regulations and has allowed students to take 40% of courses of their choice and USDM has already implemented that from this academic year. In our university the students have the 60% core courses and 40% they select.
We have signed MoU with nearly 210 institutes including IITs, NITs and other central Universities, State Universities, Private Universities, even colleges of Assam and also of the entire North East.
We also have done innovation, and this innovation has resulted in 60 such innovations having been granted IPR that is patent in the last 1 and half year which has created more opportunities to the industries which are coming in the north-east. In the Northeast we have knowledge based courses. We have plenty of resources as we all know northeast is the hotspot of biodiversity.
We have started courses in herbal, gardening, herbal medicines, and several courses, startups, we have signed MoUs with industries. We are developing Ayurveda Ahar so that a balanced food can be provided. Skilling is the part of not only the pre-existing but also value addition in your knowledge. Medical College and Ayurveda College are coming up in Meghalaya. & medical College in USDM is coming under PPP Model. We need to understand that universities are not only for skilling but to also create knowledge as well as create resources for the institute of skill development.
Monica Bahl– We have to be well from inside to look beautiful outside. Keeping that in mind the Sector Skill Council for Beauty and Wellness is growing at the ratio of 17.6 CAGR in 2018- 2022. But in India the growth was higher from the global average. We were growing at 18. 6 CAGR. between the timeframe 2018-2022. The sector witnessed the evaluation of 97 thousand crore in India and by 2025 the sector will be at 2. 55 lakh crore. Which shows the growth and the opportunity which we have.
Specifically when we talk of Assam, for our industry it’s the sourcing hub. Whether we talk of yoga, ayurveda, we talk of beauty, we talk of makeup. Wellness tourism is also an area which people should know. India is ranking number 12 in wellness tourism out of 20 countries. Assam and the entire northeast is the untapped market where we can see wellness tourism growing. Which will include Yoga, Ayurveda and also there will be internal healing. Assam is the land which is rich in nature and herbs. Assam has huge potential to take Ayurveda and the herbal products to the global market.
The session was moderated by Subhash Chandra Das, IAS (Retd) Vice-chancellor, Assam Skill University
