The Hindu Business Line : ‘Industries have significant role in a knowledge economy’

Madurai, Oct. 5 Research and Development (R&D) has become critical to sustain the process of progress in a knowledge economy where innovation is a continuing process. This calls for highly trained skills.

There is need for industries and educational institutions to come together to interact constantly and upgrade the curriculum. There is no dearth of employment but dearth of trained skills as India is growing into a knowledge economy, observed Mr G. Viswanathan, Chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, here on Friday.

Delivering the inaugural address at The Academic Conference on Knowledge Enrichment (TACKLE), organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Madurai Zone, at Thiagarajar College of Engineering, he said between 2000 and 2004, as per an OECD study, Indian investment in R&D has come down from 0.77 per cent to 0.69 per cent.

At the same time, in comparison, investment in China has risen from 0.97 per cent to 1.3 per cent. There is therefore, need for raising the investment in R&D both by the Government and the industry, he emphasised.

Change in curriculum

Speaking further, he said that due to the inflexible nature of the establishment and the widespread affiliation type in higher education in the country, change in curriculum has been a slow affair.

The Government should take the initiative to bring about a change in the scenario in which industry and educational institutions become part and parcel of each other.

Industrialists should become members of Boards of Studies and teachers should get exposure to an industrial environment to make effective contributions. CII has a role to assume in this respect. In Europe, separate funds are set apart to facilitate exposure even outside the country, he pointed out.

Management education

Stating that management education should be taught to all, Mr Viswanathan suggested promotion of integrated courses and free access to higher education for all. That would make reservation system redundant and arrest migration to other countries for education, as witnessed with respect to medicine. He urged the participants to learn communication and soft skills sincerely and further learn at least one more foreign language.

Mr T. Kannan, Past Chairman, CII, Southern Region, in his key-note address, commended on the utility of apprenticeship system in acquiring skills and observed that the industry has not been doing enough for students to enable them to acquire knowledge and skills to survive in an increasingly competitive scenario.

The meet had sessions on ‘Successful strategies in skill development’, ‘Skill enrichment - emerging trends in process of learning’ and ‘Role of education to meet industrial needs’.

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