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GO EDUCATION

Bridging the gap betweenindustry and academiaCollaborating with academia could be the answer to the seriou manpower hortagewhich industry is facing nowaday

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE in

India's growth in the future is the

shortage of skilled employees across

industries. According to NASSCOM,

each year over three million gradu-

ates and post-graduates are added

to the Indian workforce. However, of

these only 25 per cent of techni-

cal graduates and 10 to 15 percent

of other graduates are considered

employable by the rapidly growing IT

and ITES segments.

The need of industry is knowl-

edge and skills acquired to become

skill-ready employees from day one.

But what we have today is a grow-

ing skills gap reflecting a very small

availability of high-quality college

7& GO-GETTER I MAY 2013

education in India and the multi-

fold growth pace of the country's

service-driven economy, which is

growing faster than most countries

in the world. Thus, there is a need

felt for the integration of job and

learning, thus creating a need for

customised programmes for the

industry.

Since businesses are planning

to increase their workforce two to

three times, India is facing chal-

lenges in maintaining its position in

the global marketplace. To maintain

sustenance, it has become important

to have an innovative, competent

and talented workforce of world-

class standards.

Raman Batra engineering colleges, has actually

more than trebled in the last decade,

according to the All India Council of

Technical Education. Ironically, creat-

ing a robust and continuous pipeline

of talent has become even harder.

The best and most selective universi-

ties generate too few graduates, and

new private colleges are producing

graduates of uneven quality. In this

scenario, will industry-academia

partnerships bridge the demand-

supply gap?

Further, universities and educa-

tional institutions have been unable

to update their syllabi in tune with

the high speed changes taking

place in the technological world.

Hence, the students churned out are

not equipped to meet the current

industry requirements and often

companies have to incur additional

expenses (time and monetary) to

train new hires.

Corporate houses also feel the

need for a stronger element of

vocational training. Besides the

technological aspect industries

also evaluate competencies across

soft skills, team building, overall

attitude, and values. Success of

countries like Japan and Germany

can be attributed to the presence of

a strong vocational training set-up.

While analysts are pessimistic about

overcoming the serious manpower

shortage which the industry is fac-

ing, there are many who believe that

collaborating with academia is the

One cannot ignore that to sustain

the economic development and

social presence in the society, knowl-

edge, skills, and resourcefulness

of the people is very critical. Given

the current high-paced growth and

dynamic investment climate in India,

the demand for knowledgeable

workers with high levels of technical

and soft skills will only increase.

The spectre of a severe shortage

of trained, skilled and knowledge

workers is haunting India Inc. While

demographics weigh in the country's

favour, quality of workforce does

not. A look at the Indian education

system will reveal that the number of

technical schools in India, including

answer.

Many leading corporate houses

undertake training programmes

that cover a range of domains to

GO EDUCATION

take care of an organisation's total

training requirements. Best practice

companies link their corporate learn-

ing solutions to long-term business

strategy and marketplace challenges,

and establish corporate education

programmes as a continuous learn-

ing system to maintain strategic

momentum. Although a large num-

ber of corporates have initiated the

collaborative process with academic

institutions, it is predominantly to

deal with the shortage within the

company itself.

An ideal illustration of one such

effort in bridging the gap that was

personally evaluated is Pyramid

Finishing School at NIET (Noida Insti-

tute of Engineering & Technology),

Greater Noida, where students are

trained according to the industry re-

quirements giving individual students

a 360 degree improvement, not only

in the areas like soft skills, life skills,

technical skills and etiquettes but

also exposing the students to time

management, teamwork and project

management. This process is initi-

ated in the early semesters of their

core programmes thereby amalgam-

ating it with their standard curricula.

In the pioneer study conducted

78 GO-GETTER I MAY 2013

BESIDES THE

TECHNOLOGICAL

ASPECT INDUSTRIES

ALSO EVALUATE

COMPETENCIES ACROSS

SOFT SKILLS,

~EAM BUILDING_,_

OVERALL ATTITUDE

AND VALUES

at NIET, it was observed that the

study population (ones who studied

this amalgamated curricula), when

reached their fifth and seventh

semesters to face placement drives,

showed a stupendous rise in place-

ment figures by 400 per cent as

compared to the control group (who

were not subjected to the additional

finishing school curriculum). Thus,

NIET, Greater Noida, now has tie-ups

with Headstrong & Impetus under

a NASSCOM initiative for onsite

training of students, giving them

exposure in live industry projects.

The placement success story at

NIET, Greater Noida, has proved that

if innovative solutions for academia

are initiated, their need understood

and passed on to students, it will

help industries to meet their business

needs for higher productivity, lower

costs, and increased efficiencies.

The need to groom talent early on

is being keenly felt by the corporate

sector as many organisations these

days are tying up with educational

institutions. Companies are increas-

ingly moving beyond the convention-

al role of merely absorbing talent;

they are also actively participating in

the process of shaping it.

"For companies today, human

talent is the most valuable asset. It

is important that organisations not

only hire talent, but also engage

in increasing talent availability in

the industry and provide growth

opportunities, in a responsible man-

ner. One way of doing it is through

building close relationship with

educational institutions, which need

support and expertise from the in-

dustry in grooming their students by

augmenting theirs skills, knowledge

and awareness before they step into

the bigger world," says Sanmitra

Trivedi, Head, Human Resource,

Verizon Data Services India.

Academic curriculum does not

necessarily prepare individuals ad-

equately for workplace requirements

such as behavioral, communication

and performance management.

Industry and academia tie-ups

give them the necessary exposure

to hone their skills. In the given

scenario, how can companies and

educational institutes interact to

make individuals more industry-

ready) There is a need to think

innovatively about how corporate

and industry can interact more. The

ever increasing demand for skilled

professionals and domain specialisa-

tion has led to innovation within the

academic space.

Industry-academic tie-ups are

a novel form of bridging the gap

between the job requirement and

the training imparted at educational

institutions. It has both short term

and long term benefits. For students

it's a lengthy process cut short. From

fulfilling the growing requirement

for a sharper skill set to ensuring a

healthy breed of young profession-

als, industry-academic tie ups sure is

a win-win situation for both parties.

{The writer. Raman Batra, is Director.

(Me. PFSand NIET Business School)