The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Industries urged to set up training centres for graduates

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 02, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Industries urged to set up training centres for graduates

Special Correspondent

"They should broad-base their search for manpower" They should broad-base their search for manpower, says Ponmudi

FOCUS ON TRAINING: (From left to right) Madras University Vice-Chancellor S.P.Thyagarajan; V. Balaraman, president, Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry; K. Ponmudi, Minister for Higher Education; A. Sankarakrishnan, vice-president, MCCI; and D. Viswanathan, Anna University Vice-Chancellor, at a seminar in Chennai on Thursday. — PHOTO: S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

CHENNAI: Industries should set up training institutes to give hands-on training to graduating students to make them more employable, Minister for Higher Education K.Ponmudi said on Thursday.

Though talent was available in abundance, the search for it was limited, and industries should broad-base their search for manpower, reaching out to all sections of students, he said, inaugurating a seminar on `War for Talent,' organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Employers' Federation of Southern India and Avalon Consulting.

Engineering graduates should be given practical training by industries, and corporate training should be made part of the curriculum. The search for talent should not be limited to academic performance, he said.

Speaking on the role of educational institutions, Madras University Vice- Chancellor S.P. Thyagarajan said the university had taken steps to tide over the mismatch between the manpower generated by educational institutions and that required by the industry. The university had made it mandatory for a third of the members of the 86 Boards of Studies to be drawn from non-academic circles.

Innovative courses were started to make the students more employable, and the existing courses were revised. There was a proposal to introduce an Indian community college system on the lines of the American model. Public-private partnerships were the need of the hour, and these should bring together the university, industries and the Government, he said.

About 30 per cent of engineering graduates were unemployable, as they lacked communication skills, Anna University Vice-Chancellor D. Viswanathan said. To mitigate this, the university had made communication and soft skills a mandatory subject for all courses. Industries should set up training centres and research parks in educational institutions.

One of the most serious problems faced by traditional industries such as manufacturing was not just talent management but talent retention and tackling talent poaching, said A. Aravamudhan, chairman, Tamil Nadu Committee of EFSI, and executive vice-president (Human Resources), Lucas TVS Ltd.

Students from premier educational institutions were not too keen on joining traditional manufacturing companies, and industry initiatives were required to support institutional efforts to cope with skilled manpower shortage. While institutions should develop customised curricula, organisations should facilitate growth of competency, he said. V. Balaraman and A. Sankarakrishnan, president and vice-president of MCCI, and Vinod Kumar, vice-president, Avalon Consulting, spoke.

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