Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Educational institutions should help students acquire skills

Staff Reporter

State should introduce law to establish vocational institutions, says expert

COIMBATORE: Quality is never an accident; it is a result of intelligent effort. So, all educational institutions should become institutions of quality to make students skilled for future employability, Vinay L. Deshpande, Chairman and CEO, Encore Software Limited, Bangalore, and chairman of Education Sub-Committee, Confederation of Indian Industry (Southern Region), said on Friday.

Inaugurating the second edition of the regional summit of the CII Coimbatore Zone on quality in education with the theme, `Managing Change in Higher Educational Institutions,' he said: "We do not even know the areas in which we are lacking in skills. That should be identified as a primary duty. The CII Southern Region should urge the State Government to introduce a law to establish vocational institutions. Such legislation would ensure that quality is maintained in such institutions."

"There are many sectors like the retail, auto components, hospitality, healthcare and entertainment that are going to face acute shortage of skilled people. Only a rise in number of vocational institutions would help us churn out more skilled manpower," he said. M. Settu, convenor, education panel of the CII Coimbatore Zone, said there were five components of higher education that had to be reviewed.

They were higher education in general, professional courses, vocational courses, distance education courses and continuous learning programmes.

The percentage of students taking up higher education in the country was only seven per cent.

He urged the Government to set up an education development finance corporation that would provide finance to students at zero per cent interest for pursuing higher education.

S.K. Kakkar, principal counsellor and head, CII Institute of Quality, Bangalore, said growth and development in any sector was not possible without change.

"The same is true in the case of education too. Knowledge has been replaced with skill. Most of our educated youngsters are unemployable because of [their] lack of skills. A holistic approach to change in education can be brought about only if there is the right philosophy, right system and right tools and techniques."

Jayakumar Ramdass, chairman, CII Coimbatore Zone, said the CII was concentrating on education because it determined the quality of human resources that came into the industry.

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