The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : It is time for liberalisation of education sector: CII chief

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It is time for liberalisation of education sector: CII chief

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: What are the yardsticks of quality of education and growth in today’s campuses? Through a series of lectures and discussions, the 11th National Summit on “Quality in Education” hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industries - Institute of Quality, delved into issues related to quality, excellence and employability in higher and school education.

The two-day summit was inaugurated, and the “CII framework for excellence in Education”, developed by the CII-IQ with 60 institutions across the country, was released here on Friday.

On the one hand, there were the hard realities of the education sector — only 50,000 lecturers were available as against the requirement of around 1.6 lakh engineering college teachers — presented by academics and leading educationists.

On the other, there were theoretical models proposed by planners and representatives from the industry.

With over 500 participants from throughout the country, plenary sessions brought together various stakeholders from the sector. The Hindu is the media partner for the event.

Speaking at the inaugural function, CII Institute of Quality Chairman K.N. Shenoy called for liberating education in India “the way we liberated our industry more than a decade ago”.

“This debate should gear up the educational process by adopting a new education excellence model where schools, colleges and universities can compete beyond a bench mark,” Mr. Shenoy explained.

Skill shortage

Pointing to an acute skill shortage daunting the industry, CEO of NIIT Ltd. Vijay Thadani pointed out that there were 10 million vacancies in the service sector, although 41 million had registered with employment exchanges. Stressing on the need for quality, the former chairman of All India Council of technical Education (AICTE) R. Natarajan said that “innovate or perish” must be the sector’s motto.

“With students seeking immediate employment, research and teaching were the lowest priority. Neither teachers no students had any good role models. Now only technology can make up for the lack of sufficient educators,” Prof. Natarajan said. With parallel sessions on school and higher education, the seminar threw up issues ranging from the role of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), government initiatives to lack of stringent accreditation standards.

Union Public Service Commission member E. Balaguruswamy held the audience captive with his frank assessment of the current educational system.

“As a Vice-Chancellor when I made the examinations application-based, the results came down to 40 per cent. How can such a system talk about quality?” Prof. Balaguruswamy asked.

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