Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
India is suffering from unemployment and underemployment and the society in general is suffering from different kinds of diseases including malnutrition. Unemployed people cannot support financially their families because of low income. Education is the variable that makes a man employable in accordance with his educational qualification and experience in a particular branch of studies. There is mass unemployment among the educated people. They are educated but not skilled. An organization is ready to employ somebody who can serve the required purpose. Indian education system is walking along the road of old path or traditional path in 21st century.
There are three main branches of education and they are Arts, Science and Commerce. Majority of Indian Universities confer Degrees and Diplomas in these three branches of education without imparting proper training and developing set skills. Indian education system lacks innovation and modern approach to imparting education. The Universities should think seriously now to establish entrepreneurship development centres, business incubator, research parks and so on which shall act as the hub of skill development for the young graduates. The undergraduate and postgraduate studies and curricula must be project based. It shall be made mandatory that a live project of 100 marks is a part and parcel of course and no Degree or Diploma shall be awarded without satisfactory completion of the project. The aspiring graduates should be sent to the corporate and industries for training for a semester or a trimester. Education shall be needed to be made application oriented. Educational products like project reports, Ph.D. theses etc are to be made available to the mass es and the knowledge so produced need to be disseminated for socio-economic development. It may not be out of place to mention that in developed countries, private organizations flock to the research centres for the knowledge that has been produced by the research houses in order to develop their market and innovative product to sell in the markets. Enterprising culture is essentially to be imbibed among the students. Instead of being job seekers, they should be job creator. Organizational capability has to be raised by the Government so that they can afford to run various skill development centers as a part of corporate social responsibility. Simply awarding Degrees without providing training makes everything useless. Only innovative education can generate job potential of the young graduates. Many of us may be aware of existence of Cambridge Research Park, Harburg University Park in Germany, Oulu Business University Park in Finland which are ceaselessly engaged in imparting training to students, corporates and academia. India can think on these lines too so that our society can be beneficial and unemployment problem can be solved to a greater extent. China and Taiwan are practitioners of such concept and have started to garner the benefits. Quality and relevance of education have to be kept in view while developing a course curricula and its practical application.
The Universities must be given academic autonomy so that they can bring about reformation on their own. Let there be competition among the Universities with respect to quality of research and education delivery system. Non performing educational institutions should not get the same grants as should be given to the institutions who are quality assurers. The students must be given liberty to choose the avenues of a particular profession in which he or she can excel. For higher studies, a student based on Commerce background should pursue CA/CMA/CS Professional Courses and a student having knack in science discipline should select or take up Engineering. There should not be any compulsion from any side -neither from parents nor from Universities or Institutes. Universities have a great responsibility to make the academic programmes innovative and quality and relevance prone. Proper person has to be placed in proper employment in order to achieve maximum gain for the society.
Currently 785 Universities are there in India and they can enormously contribute to the concept of innovative academics. Employment generates income, income generates savings, savings help in capital formation which help in wealth building of a nation. Thus unemployment has be controlled and eradicated in order to ensure prosperity of the nation and education has to be made innovative, qualitative and relevant and time-honoured. Innovative education can act as panacea for removing unemployment from the society and can contribute to socio-economic growth and development.
(The author is Professor of Management, School of Business, Faculty of Management, SMVDU, Katra)
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