4th HTCampus Conclave on Education Paves Way for 'Saksham Bharat Abhiyan'

A new government, huge investments in infrastructure and core industries and foreign investments expected – a huge demand for talent is sure to hit the recruitment sector.

In a scenario such as this, advanced skills and enhanced employability should be the core competency that educational institutions should aim at for its students. In a cut-throat and stringent job market like India, companies face a major task of sieving out the best fit for every job profile.

Hence, they are constantly looking for skilled, adaptable, tech-savvy professionals who can prove to be an asset to the company.

To understand the graduate employability ratio, click4college.com organized the ‘click4college Conclave on Education’ on 29th October, 2014 at Crowne Plaza, Gurgaon.

The basic objective behind the forum was to answer the question of whether educational institutes in India are providing the correct skill sets to its graduating students to meet industry’s demand.

A presentation by Mr. Ryan Pinto, CEO Ryan International Group of Institutions (Official sponsor), marked the opening of the Conclave. In his speech, he highlighted the need for skill development to make students more employable.

Mr. Ryan Pinto, CEO Ryan International Group of Institutions

The Keynote Address was delivered by Mr. Dilip Chenoy (Director NSDC), who stressed on NSDC’s attempt to popularise vocational skills across geographies for holistic employment of all strata of society.

Mr. Dilip Chenoy (Director NSDC)

A panel discussion on the topic 'Meeting the Talent Demand' was the highlight of the event. The panel had senior leaders from government as well as private educational institutions engaging in a dialogue with industry experts to understand the graduate employability ratio. The conclave also witnessed discussions on the competency quotient of new recruits.

The panelists included:

Prof. M L Singla, Dean of Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi

Prof. S K Garg, Dean of Academics at Delhi Technological University

Prof. Irfan A Rizvi, Director of the Jaypee Business School

Mr. Amit Malik, Chief Human Resource Officer of Aviva Life Insurance

Mr. R Anand, Head of the Global Centre of Excellence at HCL Technologies

To moderate the hour-long discussion, we had Mr. Rajesh Mohapatra, Executive Editor at click4college. The discussion was followed by a Q&A session by the attending delegates.

From left to right: Mr. Amit Malik, Mr. R Anand, Mr. Rajesh Mohapatra, Prof. M L Singla, Prof. S K Garg, Prof. Irfan A Rizvi

The discussion identified niche factors that are essential to current market demands and explored avenues to accentuate employability via education. The key take-aways from the panel discussion included: skill development should be initiated at school level, need for de-glamorisation of degree to provide equal opportunities for all, advocating vocational education on a large scale for the country to excel as a whole, look at ways to better the average work force instead of focussing only on the 100 percentile getters, urgent industry investment in planning and shaping the curriculum and skill development with educational institutions and find out ways to make everyone employable at the same time.

The panel unanimously agreed that change is the need of the hour for the country to be safe for our kids, for the youth to explore great opportunities within and grab it instead of taking the immense talent pool abroad & for a sane political eco-system in the future.

In his closing note, Mohapatra concluded that industry leaders must take the onus of communicating their expectations and make investments to help educationists upgrade their curriculum in order to make graduates more employable.

The conclave was attended by 180 delegates, including experts from educational institutes both government & private, and the recruitment sector.