The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Nasscom for special education zones

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 19, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Nasscom for special education zones

Special Correspondent

DREAM DESTINATION: Kiran Karnik, Nasscom President, addressing a gathering at ISB in Hyderabad on Monday.

HYDERABAD: Special economic zones have become the order of the day. But imagine a special education zone where participants will be able to create a curriculum of their own to suit the emerging needs of the industry and improve employability of students.

With a steep fall in employment levels due to shortage of soft skills, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has mooted the idea of special education zones to overcome the problem. The special zones will liberate education from bureaucratic forces and make it market-driven. They will go a long way in improving the employability of college-leaving youth, according to Nasscom president Kiran Karnik.

Booming industry

"Even as IT exports are set to touch $60 billion mark by 2010 in addition to a domestic market share of $20 billion, the industry is likely to fall short of five lakh people," he said. Participating in an international symposium on `Information systems' at Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Monday, Mr. Karnik lamented that the academia had failed to deliver quality resources. "Education in the Indian context means keeping your eyes and ears open and mouth shut," he observed.

The innovation-driven market of knowledge economy would not need answers to questions but "it is questioning the answers that leads to innovation." To achieve this, there was a need to tinker with the education system to create high levels of innovation.

Higher education

Mr. Karnik was equally concerned about the declining number of students opting for postgraduate studies and Ph.D programmes despite the need for a good research background. The industry was acting as a `large suction pump' by offering jobs to graduates who were yet to come out of colleges. "If this is so, where is the question of students opting for higher levels of study?" he asked, adding that this would lead to fall in the number of teachers that was already on the decline owing to various factors, including low compensation.

ISB dean M. Ramamohan Rao and others spoke.

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