Industry put emphasis on Bridging gap between theory & practical through better interface
Make students more application-oriented & industry environment- ready: Industry leaders
GTU to organize Centralized Placement Fair for Engineering students in all 5 Zonal Centres
Ahmedabad: Integrated Training & Placement Cell of Gujarat Technological University (GTU) organised the HR Manager’s Meet & Panel Discussion on ‘Centralized Recruitment Platform at GTU: Challenges and Opportunities’ on 9th June. Total 120 delegates including HR managers of 50 companies participated & gave their suggestions in the HR conclave held at Chandkheda campus. After the conclave, GTU has now started series of planning from 12th June to create the blue print for starting Centralised Placement Fairs at Zonal Centres including Surat & Rajkot. GTU will create a special website for this purpose. GTU plans to allow 10-15 weeks internship or project in corporate to engineering students after 7th Semester.
Dr. Jaimin Vasa, Senior Vice President of GCCI spoke about “Expectations of industry to meet the demands of fresh professional and technocrats”. He said that, “You can have the best strategy and the best building in the world, but if you don’t have the hearts and minds of the people who work with you, none of it comes to life. One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” Today, businesses are looking for innovative solutions from the academia to help meet their business needs of higher productivity and lower costs, yet increase efficiencies. As far as talent in India is concerned, attention needs to be paid towards technical and management resources as these are crucial to knowledge-based industries. A market-driven approach to higher education has to be fostered in order to encourage manpower development from the grass root level itself. “Make students application-oriented and industry environment – ready to increase their employability. Impetus should be on the personal and holistic development of students through membership of industry associations. Students needed to develop values like passion, commitment, and integrity and they should be a fundamental part of the curriculum. Curriculum and syllabus upgradation should be finalized in consultation with industry experts and necessary changes should be made whenever required.”
Prof.(Dr) S.D. Panchal, in-charge Registrar of GTU said that GTU was created as a common & uniform platform for Diploma to Doctorate profession courses. During history of last 10 years, GTU got lot of achievements & awards. GTU has strength of 450 + affiliated colleges, more than 4 lakh students, 17,000 faculty members, 30 + global & 70 + national affiliations. Under unique IEP (International Experience Program), 373 students were sent abroad to get global exposure. GTU is a very big responsibility of the administration & Government of Gujarat. There are 76,000 students in final year of various Engineering courses. This include 46,000 in BE, 27000 in Diploma and ME, BCA, MCA & others rest. Our challenge is to improve employability. For this purpose, new Model curriculum has been introduced as per AICTE. We have chalk out a Plan for 10 to 15 weeks Internship or Full time semester project for 7th semester students in engineering courses.
Mr. Haresh Chaturvedi – V.P. HR – Reliance Industries Ltd campus explained how students perform in interviews while facing questions. He said that we need Institute-school interface to inculcate team building, attitude, leadership skills right from school level. However, this is a tough process. But besides technical knowledge & skillsets it is the responsibility of schools & parents. Biggest challenge we are facing is HR teams have to find candidates having skills of latest technology every 5 years as technologies are changing at very fast pace. In this situation many professors are not ready to update their knowledge as per requirement of industry. For Internship or guest lectures of industry experts, we are ready to help.
Dr. Rajesh Parikh, I/c Vice Chancellor & Director of GTU said that we have organised 7 Pharmacy Placement Fairs successfully. It is now vision of Prof.(Dr) Navin Sheth, Vice Chancellor to organise similar Centralsed Placement Fair for Engineering also. We have plan to inculcate soft skill in students & take new initiatives as lack of technical skills & lack of soft skills are the major problems. Govt. of India & Govt. of Gujarat is also concentrating on this and created skill council and bridging the gap between Industry & academia.
Instead of lamp lighting the event was started with tree plantation. Panel Discussion was held in the event & it was moderated by HR expert Mr. Sanjay Dave. Dr. Rajul Gajjar, Principal of Vishwakarma Government Engineering College gave outline of the panel discussion & presented challenges in engineering education. She said that there is need of change the thinking, beyond the classroom thinking is necessary. There is need for improving practical knowledge of students. As a part of the plan, we have organised this first meeting of HR to get suggestions from industries. Mr. Bhavyesh Kariya, VP(HR) of GIFT city, Mr. Shailesh Modi, CHRO of Windsor Machines and Mr. Krunal Patel, TPO of GPERI as well as Prof.(Dr) S.D. Panchal, I/c Registrar of GTU participated in the panel discussion. Hitesh Gujarati, I/c of ITAP and co-ordinator of the event presented vote of thanks.
Dr. Jaimin Vasa gave broad outline of industry perspective this way:
Industry Viewpoint of education:
Need Improvement in different Areas of Education
Emphasis should be laid on the foundation of a subject. Students needed to develop values like passion, commitment, and integrity and they should be a fundamental part of the curriculum.
Impetus should be on the personal and holistic development of students through membership of associations and attending national seminars.
Bridging the gap between theory and practical through better industry interface: The need of the hour is that students need to absorb the skills to think like leaders. This could only happen if there is awareness of industry environment and if they were application – oriented.
Curriculum and syllabus upgradation should be finalised in consultation with industry experts and necessary changes should be made whenever required. Value adding courses, role – plays and relevant case studies should be an indispensable part of the curriculum. Live research should be brought to the academic institutions to make understanding and applicability better.
Faculty is considered as fountainhead of knowledge and every student looks forward to his/her teachers for answers to their curiosity. Degrees/Doctorates do matter but experience of the faculty has in terms of consulting, research work and connecting with the students. The question to ponder on is whether teaching is just a job or actually it is a source of contentment after delivering the best.
Recommendations from Industry Perspective for Good Education –
Improve accreditation and governance rules in academic institutions: A professional body including representatives from the industry association, Enterpreneurs, academia and government needs to be established to grant recognition to institutes and also to cross verify that the basic standards pertaining to infrastructure, adequately equipped libraries and qualified and experienced teaching staff are fulfilled.
Training must be quality and expertise oriented specially for scientific and professional students: Promote Research Translation centres in India to facilitate conversion of academic knowledge to industrial products.
Upgrade the existing Research centres to become Centres of Excellence/Innovation hubs: Ally with leading foreign institutes to strengthen the Indian capabilities to transfer the new research & development work to the market.
Effective Industry Involvement:
Make sure that industry participates in discussions related to formulating policies wherein academia and industry can flourish as a combined entity.
Hold business plan competitions jointly sponsored by industry and academia
Renewal of research grants should be made to the academic institutions contingent on industry linkages.
Help academic researchers commercialize their research findings by encouraging academic institutions to interact with an industrial partner to promote their products.
Attract State-of-the art teaching faculty
Attract high-performing Indian scientists/technocrats back to India
Allow faculty to earn royalty on patents
Provide extra allowances and incentives to faculty and researchers so that they feel at par with the corporate sector and psychologically feel motivated to work.
Allow scientists to hold part-time positions in the private sector in order to have the right blend of theory and practice.
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