“I am happy about the National Education Policy (NEP). It aims to improve the quality of education in the country,” said Infosys founder Narayana Murthy. “We must recognise that the need of the game is to transform our children from reactive and apathetic people to proactive, problem recognisers and problem solvers. That is the most important need today,” he said at the ‘Thought Leadership Series’ organised by Great Lakes Institute of Management.

“We have to instill in the minds of youngsters things like curiosity; problem solving; open mindedness; pluralism; respect for others’ opinions and views; respect for other cultures; not being afraid of learning outside India and Socratic questioning in our children. This is not only in the schools but also at homes. Unless we bring about such a change in the mindset, I don’t know if any education policy will indeed help our youngsters. This will require a huge effort, but it is worth taking it up. There is an attempt by the NEP to help children in some way,” he said.

Software value chain

On moving up the value chain in the software services industry, Murthy said it is about doing work that has high value for customers and will result in getting increased prices.

The per capita revenue in the IT industry today varies between $30,000 and $50,000. For large companies it is around $52,000 and for those doing work like business process management $35,000. This figure has not changed significantly in the last 20 years.

“People are still reactive problem solvers mostly in technology areas with customers telling the problems they have, and companies giving solutions. Our education system has not helped youngsters to become proactive problem recognisers and problem resolvers. The Indian mindset has not evolved to sell the business value to our customers. Our salespeople sell mostly a price, and we reduce every market to a commodity market. That is the reality,” he said.

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