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Asian Age Article, 03/09/2010, Ganesh Natarajan
 
 
The Three different encounters in three diverse cities earlier showed me how many points of view exist on the way to build a knowledge eco-system and indeed how much many of the challenges are similar while some are different. A visit to the city of Wuxi in China, a couple of hours away from the majestic showpiece city of Shanghai in China was an education in itself given the scale of their infrastructure investments aimed at keeping Fortune 500 investors happy, enabling fast growing new economy Chinese firms like Suntech, a global major in solar panels to succeed and the new steps they are taking in the Wuxi New Development (WND) area to attract IT and BPO firms from all parts of the world including India. As the Secretary of the Communist Party of China told me over lunch, all they lack is a constant flow of talented people to fuel the growth of the services industry in the city.
Sharing the dais with the Chief Minister, Agriculture Minister and IT Minister of Madhya Pradesh a few days later, it was heartening to find that here is one state that has woken up a little late but is now embracing the IT and BPO industry in full earnest. Excellent initiatives in e-government and e-agriculture has enabled the “aam aadmi” to get the benefits of IT and the Government with its notified SEZs in the four cities of Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur is now proudly flaunting its three cities which figure in the NASSCOM-AT Kearney survey of fifty top IT cities and opening its arms to investors. The challenge however is to attract the many graduates of MP’s excellent colleges who are now working all over the country and abroad to return home to build the industry.
And finally two successive meetings in Pune with Vivek Sawant the effusive former CEO of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation (MKCL) and Dr Narendra Jadhav, academician extraordinaire and erstwhile Vice Chancellor of the exalted Pune University to underline again how the city’s enlightened academic community has spearheaded the knowledge revolution in this Western city . The sheer spread of the MKCL with IT literacy programs offered across thousands of locations in the state have now laid the base for a totally IT literate state which augurs well for a future solution to the IT manpower crisis that is afflicting the growth of many firms all over the country.
The causes for the gap between graduates and employable skills are many – outdated curriculum, poor quality faculty, anachronistic technology in education and a myopic view of career opportunities have been recognized as weaknesses for many years and the response of the private sector barring a few initiatives in the recent past, have demonstrated an alarming lack of capability to bridge quality with scale. The tendency to build alternative training systems and succumb to the attractiveness of indiscriminate franchising has discredited many fine private institutions and the need to have a degree under their belt before applying their minds to the onerous task of career building has left many young graduates starting their career building too late in the day.
The solution to the demand-supply gap is obvious although very few steps have been initiated so far. The mutual distrust that exists between employers, traditional universities and colleges and private training institutions has to be dispelled by some strong and proactive collaboration initiatives. The weakness in faculty capabilities will have to be overcome by deploying technology at a scale that permits dissemination of well designed content to the colleges and education centers across the state and the role of the teacher must morph into that of a learning facilitator. The task the MKCL has taken up and the vision of forward looking universities like Pune and Tamilnadu to address curriculum and capability issues through public private partnerships are steps that all states and indeed countries will need to take but plenty of more ground has to be covered before the large potential of Indian youth is translated into industry performance.
Career seekers too must be encouraged to break free from the shackles of their paper chase mindset and encouraged to use their time after high school to analyze their own vocational aptitude and interest. A combination of study and internships in their chosen vocation can enable them to attain financial independence and design of curriculum, pedagogy and university credits through private–public partnerships to support this new breed of young aspirants will enable them to add value to the economy at an early age without abandoning their interest in academic qualifications at graduate and post-graduate level.
IT education is in need of transformation and it will need the participation of all the players to enable and sustain this change!
   
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