We need new structures that better reflect the diverse learning requirements of our students. We need to develop world-class capability in high-value niche areas. We need structural changes in the higher education system to ensure greater effectiveness and efficiencies. In the session “Building a robust education system for India” at the second edition of Higher Education Summit 2016, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recently in Mumbai, leaders from institutions and industry deliberated on the key areas that needed immediate address. The experts who put forth their ideas in the session were Sunil Kashikar, VP & Head-Resource Management Group, Zensar Technologies, Prince Augustin, EVP-Group Human Capital & Leadership Development, Mahindra & Mahindra, Govindraj Ethiraj, Editor in chief, PING Broadcasting Network (Moderator), Lord Meghnad Desai, Emeritus Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, VV Khole, VC, Amity University, Mumbai and Abhizer Merchant, Regional Director (South Asia), Macquarie University.
I might be little bit biased towards the IT industry, because I represent that industry. But we always have the challenge of talent. All the IT companies are struggling to find the right kind of talent and while the past has always been about getting ready made talent, because now getting ready made talent is very difficult. That’s why we are now going into the drawing board and trying to figure out what are the various options we have. And obviously one, which is very much aligned to the goals of the Government of India, Ministry of Education, is basically getting more people employed. I think, it is important for even the consumers of talent, which is the industry, to co-collaborate and get people employed.
“Students don’t know what to do and most of them are trying to figure out what is their career. It is not only for the career counsellors to be guiding them, but also for the industry”Sunil Kashikar, VP & Head-Resource Management Group, Zensar Technologies
There should be some kind of efforts made by companies to go down to the University or high school level and start training people in employable skills. I know it is there, it is not something new I am telling. But there needs to be an intense effort. Lot of companies have connected with colleges, but companies that are taking lot of talent, have to get down to may be the level of high school, depending on the level of vocational skills required or getting to the next level. There is a very strong move internationally of getting young college students, who are literally out of the high school, into certain jobs. Students don’t know what to do and most of them are trying to figure out what is their career. It is not only for the career counsellors to be guiding them, but it is also for the industry to join hands with the education institutions and start preparing the students to make them more employable for generic skills, vocational skills and as well as technology skills.
The second part of it is also about the investments in R&D. A lot of organisations are spending lot of money on R&D on the products, goods and services, technology, but where is the investment in human capital, in getting people more employable, where is it that the existing workforce can be taken to the next level.
Very broadly as you know, India has a very high and impressive enrolment in terms of primary education, as per the last census, which is actually near to 100 percent. But the number comes down to almost 52 percent, when you look at higher education. Moreover about 450 million people in India had never attended any education institution. Roughly around 340 million attend some education institution or the other and only about 32 million attend college. The proportion of women in all these ratios, diminish as you go towards higher education and so does most importantly, the proportion of women in Indian workforce.
If we have to bring in some noticeable changes in our education system, we must also think of bringing about structural changes in the university system. As a result of which we would be able to bring in some effectiveness and efficiency, so that the students can actually benefit. If you look at the current structural framework, which allows the university to function—I would basically refer to the state and central universities—the structural framework appears to be very rigid. I have not seen the draft of the new act, but I am sure by the time it is passed through the legislative assembly, quite lot of changes will take place and provisions will get diluted.
The main framework of the university system which provides education to lakhs of students, needs to be made very flexible. The rigidity in the system needs to be removed. Therefore the freedom to education institutes need to be provided in the system itself. As a result of which colleges do not depend on the university and the university do not depend more on the government and the regulatory authorities. Therefore we must concentrate on providing structural changes by which we can liberate the education system. We have to loosen the system and provide flexibility, empower the education institutions and teachers, understand better as to how to teach, what to teach, when to teach. Probably also we are in a position to measure the competencies of the students, after completing graduate or postgraduate programme. Probably are aware what the requirements of the industries are. So, if we provide them a flexi system to the teachers and students, the students may like to progress with their own capacity and capability and with the time that they have in their hand. Also allow the credit system to be setup in all the universities, which could be cross-exchanged at different levels throughout the country. Then the education system is likely to become dynamic. As a result of which there would be fresh air and fresh blood in the system. Variety of programmes could be made available to the students at one go and students will have options to choose programmes and courses from different universities at the same time.
“The good part, effective part, efficient part, as far as private education providers are concerned, is that they are definitely less bureaucratic and less restrictive” VV Khole, VC, Amity University, Mumbai
But when one thinks of all these facilities, which need to be provided in our regular state and central university system, one can understand that it’s a very difficult task. And therefore one would start looking at the private education provider, which are now outnumbering the government (central and state) education providers. For example, the number of private universities that have come up in India, they now are nearly equal to the state and central universities in India. And in about another five year time, they will outnumber government education system. The good part, effective part, efficient part, as far as private education provider is concerned and there institutions and universities are concerned, is that they are definitely less bureaucratic and less restrictive.
“The proportion of women in all these ratios, diminish as you go towards higher education and so does most importantly, the proportion of women in Indian workforce” Govindraj Ethiraj, Editor in chief, PING Broadcasting Network
If I have to give you an example of Amity University in Mumbai, we already have collaboration with Tata Technology and IBM. Quite a lot of industry houses have setup their education centres. They go to the universities, set up what are known as concept centres, where the students are allowed to go through the technology training modules that are accepted across the industries. It is not that the Tata centre would provide training which is useful for the Tata companies. They invest lot of money in developing centres, they provide trained manpower, which would assist the existing teaching faculty in the institution or the university. They help the universities to come up with programmes, which is relevant to the industry. IBM also has educational division which conducts IBM certification programmes. IBM would also install the necessary machinery and equipment in the university, as a result of which universities do not have to spend, as far as the infrastructure is concerned. Now this kind of initiative, is difficult to imagine in a state or central university system, because the legislature which regulates them prohibits this kind of an adventure. So, one has to bring in deeper structural reforms, so that the dialogue and interaction between the educational institutions and the industry becomes more meaningful. As the result ultimately the students will benefit. The teachers will also get trained in this competitive atmosphere. The teaching manpower also automatically gets updated and trained to accept more challenges that the industry is likely to face.
When you come down to reasonably good English medium schools, even there you will find that there are only two careers that people have in their mind—one is engineering and second is medicine. Apart from that they have no other choices. At the workshop we do, we say that India is the land of opportunities. But we know there are large number of roles that we can really look for. So, then from the workshop there comes to about 150 careers that they can look at.
I realised that even teachers have no clue as to what sort of careers the children can opt for. There is no connect between the teachers, the principal, or the school management, for actually guiding students as to what sort of multiple options are feasible. Now, if at an early age you get people who are confused, who really do not know where they want to go, it can become a problem.
How can you say that we will have career or career opportunities and India is a land of opportunities— unless a talent pipeline is created. Therefore, what the industry finally ends with are people who do engineering but there is no contribution of engineering in the business. Eighty percent of engineers that we hire, don’t do any engineering work with us. They don’t have to spend five years doing engineering, they can do liberal arts and so on, but none of them want to do liberal arts.
“When I go to the municipal schools I have found that students don’t want to study at all. They say, what will I do after studying, my father just can’t afford further education” Prince Augustin, EVP-Group Human Capital & Leadership Development, Mahindra & Mahindra
Dignity of labour—if you go overseas, you will have a pump attendant and a managing director sitting and having a drink together. They don’t ask in terms of the role that you really do. But in India, there is a mark-able separation between the two. How do you really build this dignity of labour? Are we going to therefore create a mass of opportunities available, but without relevance for dignity?
The government has come up with National Skills Development Corporation and they have got what is known as National Vocational Qualification Framework (NVQF). The objective is to create skill information system, education information system and talent management information system. With NVQF they have tapped all industries, they have got skills from the bottommost to the highest level. Then there are institutions which train but people who train hardly have any idea what is happening. This Skills Development Councils (SDC) have to create skills ecosystem. If you have it managed very well— there is an integration that is required to guide people—we can provide youth the direction and help them to take those opportunities.
How do we ensure that we create a passion for talent that is really streamlined? You go to UK—people from schools spend three to four months in a public or private enterprise, to have an understanding where is it that they want to go. People from the industry are actually involved in mentoring school students. So much of focus is there from the industry, but do education institutes here look for it. When I go to the municipal schools I have found that students don’t want to study at all. They say, what will I do after studying, my father just can’t afford further education. They have no idea of careers and career opportunities that are available. If we look at large majority of people in the hinterland, they really do not have any opportunity. How can an ecosystem be created so that we bring the large hinterland back into the mainland. How is it that we can leverage the skills equity and youth equity, to create a talent pool for the country?
We have to redefine what a student needs. Looking at the students from point of view of what they do—they go to university, attend classes, go for lectures, give exams, graduate or is it more than that. I think we need to redefine the concept of learner—people who want to learn on the job, executive learning, people who want to learn for recreational purpose as well and those kind of aspects.
In Australia currently over half a million international students are studying on the campuses right now. And the government actually looks at them as a major source of talent for Australia and potential migrants in the future. Looking at their projections by 2025, Australia should have 7,20,000 students enrolled on campus. The main question for Australia is do we have the structure to support that many students on campus. Do we have enough accommodations which is feasible and affordable for them? What the Australian government is doing is, they are redefining the whole concept like do students have to come on campus and do a normal traditional programme. Can they do some of them online or through their institutes offshore.
“There might be lot of pressure on universities to think about going online, as everyone is going in that direction. But it is expensive, there is investment required to go online. Abhizer Merchant, Regional Director (South Asia), Macquarie University
One of the challenges I faced when I came to India two years back for interacting with universities and colleges, talking about student exchange agreements, is that there was reluctance from lot of colleges saying that they need permission from their universities before they can do that. Also universities said you need to pick up institutes were you can cross-credit and give credit for the work they do overseas, back to their degree, back home. It is something that Australia, UK and US have been doing it for many years.
There might be lot of pressure on universities to think about going online, as everyone is going in that direction. But it is also important to remember that it is expensive, there is investment required to go online. You also have to make sure that the market wants what you offer online. You actually have to match the programme that you offer online with what you offer offline. If you are offering pure quality online, it is actually damaging your brand offline as well.
Meghnad Desai: Several good points have been made here, one was the attitude of equality. But the idea that I can sit down with somebody— to me it is my maidservant in London. When she arrives, I make her a cup of tea. She and I talk to each other on the basis of social equality. India completely lacks in notion of equality. When you see in a restaurant here, the way they shout at waiters. One idea is that we really need the culture of social equality.
Second is, in education we care more about the certificate than about the education. In the number of jobs offered, companies insist on paper qualifications, without testing the person’s skills or abilities. You may cheat in exam or may not, at the end of it you will get certificate. One things is that we are very neglectful of outcome and are much more interested in the process of inputs.
The public sector in education here is underpriced and of low quality, except for the few elite institutes. Ninety percent of public sector is actually providing third grade education. I have seen applications from professors for a job, they can’t write one page of application letter in English. It is shameful. Parents refuse to pay higher fees for public sector colleges but they will pay for private tutorial colleges. What we really have to do is concentrate on growth of variety of private sector provisions, which will provide an alternative. Don’t think that education has to be between 16 and 20 years age. And if you can do that, it will answer India’s great need for education and fill the inadequacies of the public sector provisions. Forget about reforming the public sector.
Prince Augustin: Necessity is the mother of invention. You cannot have an education institution without partnership from the industry. So, we partner with universities across the globe. We partner with Harvard, Stanford, Kellogs, Cambridge, most of the IITs in the country and management institutes. What has happened is, in the so called liberalisation, we have got a plethora of education institutions, which are really splurge and 80 percent of them do not have skills. Students come looking at the brand and marketing that is done, thinking that there is an opportunity available. Many of them are really not employable. Most of the engineering colleges you go, you just want hire anybody at all. For IT you don’t require engineers. You need very good graduates, with very good computer skills, who can be trained.
I did a study—at one point of time we were going through a recession. We said our costs are going up. I did a complete study—have we over skilled our jobs. I realised that in 60 percent of our jobs we have engineers, where we don’t require engineers. When in 80 percent of our jobs, we require only ITIs. Because we have got this abundant supply, we have taken people and now their mind-set is that I am an engineer therefore I should get 4-5 lakh rupees salary, when the relative worth of the job is only 2 to 2.5 lakh. We have got salesmen who are MBAs. We don’t require MBAs, we need 12 passed well educated person. Industry and education institutions are propagating this and government is the silent spectator because there is lot of money involved in education. That’s why we have got to look at the complete thing—do we really need so many education institutions in the country.
“Most of our knowledge comes from the fact that we are in the hiring side. But how about the people who are getting hired and what about the challenges they are facing. So, where is that flow of information happening?” - Sunil Kashikar
You need to have vocational institutes, vocational spread has to be large. In that I don’t see any focus happening at all. We need to bring a change management in the whole perspective. Very few of us really know what is really in store. I go to the management schools, and there I find teachers cannot even speak English properly, they do not know their subject matter at all. How do you expect good students to really come out. Look at the IIMs that have opened up, you don’t have faculty to teach there. Education institution, is a temple of learning.
“Level of ecosystem creation is something that has to be thought of, if we have to get good teachers, good students and good employable youth for the country” - Prince Augustin
My wife is a teacher and I went to her school and saw that 80 percent of the teachers don’t have any other job, therefore they come into teaching. If you look at the salaries teachers get, it is pathetic. How will you attract talent into the field. Why does private sector attract talent, it is because they pay for the talent. Unless we don’t bridge this gap—and the government has got excellent schemes—the partnership has to really work.
I don’t think we require so many universities which has come up. Fifty percent of these universities should be shut down. And these private universities, some of them do brilliant jobs, but fifty percent of them really make money. They are cheating the youth of the country, giving them false hopes, false opportunities. And what is the government doing—many of us are prototype politicians. Therefore the integrity of education, the dignity of teaching, the dignity of learning, has to go up. I will very happy doing a mechanics job, or a pump attendant job, housekeeping and hospitality job—not everybody can become a manager or a doctor. Industry spends lot of time in terms of hiring people and training them. If you transfer this whole thing back into education, that is where industry partnership comes in. Therefore, this level of ecosystem creation is something that has to be thought of, if we have to get good teachers, good students and good employable youth for the country.
SUNIL KASHIKAR: When we released a job requirement ad we had received over a lakh of applications. I could not even take ten people. I stopped advertising. While we are talking about pros and cons about private and government run universities, one of the thing which I see missing even at the basic level—we are sitting at the CII seminar, we have educationists, we have private sector, we had the government sitting here sometime back, but where are the schools. Out of the audience sitting out here, how many are students? Probably three or four. So, this is the missing link which I feel is very important, in general. When we are talking about creating skills development council, changing the way we do things, where are the students. I know all the colleges who have so called alumni association, it’s a networking association. But I have not heard, where this alumni has been called for this kind of a session. When the alumni, now that they are in the corporate or working world, they are able to come back and give a feedback to us—who have graduated 25 years back—as to what is the situation today. Most of our knowledge comes from the fact that we are in the hiring side. But how about the people who are getting hired and what about the challenges they are facing. So, where is that flow of information happening? This is the very point which is missing in the whole thing. If we start doing the students perspective, I am not saying directly the students, but students who have graduated, been through the system and have come to a certain part of life. They can give a feedback that this is where the education is incorrect or the courses are misaligned. Why should only the demand side be dictating, what is that we should do.
VV Khole: I am sure many of you have read a very sensible report of National Knowledge Commission (NKC), where the necessity of setting up large number of universities in the country was underlined probably in the most effective manner. Yashpal Committee Report which followed NKC report also emphasised upon providing opportunity to private education to come into the fray and provide access to large number of students, who otherwise are also not in a position to take admission to state and central universities.
We require more number of educational institutions and we require them more in regions, where there is not a single institution today. If you have to bring efficiency in the private education system, probably government could prepare a lighter tax regulation and not those regulations which will penal the private education provider. Unless we provide the environment where the private education provider is putting in crores of rupees, you cannot strangle them. You have to understand their sincerity and aims to come forward and provide education. I am sure many of you have noticed private education providers taking brilliant initiatives. However, one cannot at one stroke castigate the entire private education providing community.
You have to appreciate some of the initiatives which they take. They also have merit scholarship schemes, as a result of which meritocracy is appreciated. They also provide education to students who otherwise are not in a position to take education. They adopt villages in areas where they are situated. Which is otherwise not possible. And we also have seen the industry keeping away from the education—they are the ones who benefit from the product of the education system. It is now that we have started noticing industry taking in education enterprise. Otherwise industry has distanced itself from the education institutions. It is good that organisation like CII have been emphasising industry houses to take interest in the higher education system. As a result of which, whatever manpower they would like to have, they probably would be in the position to help develop the kind of required manpower.
Meghnad Desai: I think there is anti-private prejudice in this country. My view is allow competition. I don’t think there is over capacity in private sector at all, there is under capacity. We need twice as many private sector providers than what we have. The provision of anything will improve due to private. Practically all software people in this country originated from private sector institutes. The public sector is not going to reform its system, in my lifetime.
Abizer Merchant: It is absolutely right, the focus has to be on personality development. In fact the Australian government looks at mobility and sees if you are actually going outside and leaving your country for a period, as a major way of building that personality. It basically pays Australian students to go overseas—telling the students that here is 5,000/10,000 Dollars, go abroad and spend a semester with a partner institution overseas and get that experience. That is something which has to be built into the curriculum. Even the train the trainer models in India has to focus on personality development.
“In education we care more about the certificates than about the education. In the number of jobs offered, companies insist on paper qualifications, without testing the person’s skills or abilities. You may cheat in exam or may not, at the end of it you will get certificate. One things is that we are very neglectful of outcome and are much more interested in the process of inputs” Meghnad Desai
SUNIL KASHIKAR: The kind of skills I will be looking for in a year is robotics and automation in software industry. That is something which is not available today and everybody is talking about it. We are still getting there. We are already discussing with some companies in the west on what are they doing in robotics and what are the processes? So, repetitive jobs done by humans are slowly getting replaced by robots. Obviously there are other question of artificial intelligence and learning. There are some limitations. We are still working on them and for this reason we are training our own engineers, because finally the bots and robots that are being programmed by human beings, are our engineers. We are getting the engineers trained on that technology, so they can create the product.
Is the automation going to replace human beings? Is it that they are going to reduce our hiring? No, it doesn’t happen that way. What happens is the skills which we traditionally hire for, we will not be hiring. But we will be moving up the value chain and hiring people who have the newer skills. It’s not that the employability is going to be a problem and we are not going to hire people. We are going to hire people, but we are going to hire them at the higher end of the value chain.
BY RAJESH RAO
