T Bhaskar
Ajitha Surabhi, granddaughter of former Prime Minister PVNarasimha Rao, is an educator. Besides managing Sri Venkateswara group of educational institutions in Hyderabad, Telangana, she focuses her attention to the legacy problems and challenges before the present education system.
She spoke to Excel India to share her thoughts about the key gaps in the higher education system where students are either falling short of gainful employment opportunities or the governments are not updating the system to equip them to meet the societal demands. Excerpts from the talk:
Your grandfather late PV Narasimha Rao was the first union HRD (Human Resources Development) minister in the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet close to four decades ago. What are the main changes our country has seen since then?
Undoubtedly, that was a crucial period in the history of our country. Education system underwent a revamp at the time. PV garu was a capable administrator whatever role he was given by the party or the government. Of course, the name of the department has since been changed back to education now.
But, the importance of education hasn’t changed. Moreover, the number of challenges in the field of education has grown manifold. Now it is a big task for the governments, regulators and the educators to solve these challenges. India is a country of around 50 crore youngsters, most of them students.
It is our duty to provide them all meaningful employment to live with dignity. Are we in a position to meet this challenge? I think no. Either our courses are outdated or the syllabus is unchanged over the years. Students are unable to decide which is good for them and how to build their careers.
We have to adapt to the changes in the world from time to time. Education is one key area which cannot be taken for granted. Any complacency in this field will affect the interests of your students, future of our country. Policies too cannot be stagnant.
India to be a developed country by 2047
You always talk about skilling our students. What skills can we teach them now?
We have to make our students Future Ready. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is talking of a Developed India by 2047. We have been hearing about India becoming the third largest world economy very soon. Every month, dozens of multinational companies are coming to our country.
Take for example, Hyderabad city and Telangana are attracting huge amounts of foreign investments and companies to set up their global capability centres (GCCs) here. Unlike in the past, these GCCs are now also the hubs of innovation and Research and Development.
Are our students ready to get good jobs in these companies? If not, we need to find out the gaps and plug them at the earliest. In my view, skilling is not a one time activity for a specific timeframe. It should be a constant effort to equip our youth to meet the present and future challenges.
When I say skilling, that includes all kinds of skills. It is good to know Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has launched a skill university in Hyderabad. I wish this varsity meet the needs of students as well as the industry. I am happy that top leaders of Tech business are roped in to lead the varsity.
At the same time, I want to emphasize that skill should not be limited to technology courses alone. There are many areas where our students can prove their mettle and get good jobs. For example – visual arts, graphic designing and fine arts too are part of the skills.
Take for example; Apple Company that makes iPhones always searches for talented fine arts and visual arts students, so that they can dream of future designs of their gadgets. Unfortunately we are neglecting fine arts, visual arts and graphic designing disciplines.
Jobs outside Tech courses
As India is becoming a major manufacturing hub in the world, how important are the fine arts and visual arts?
That’s what I am saying now that these disciplines must not be ignored. All the top end companies need talented creative people, even beyond technologically sound engineers. India needs around 30,000 graduates from fine arts, visual arts and graphic design courses, every year.
But, we are producing no more than 10,000 per year now. We are encouraging all our students to take computer science or electronics courses. They are important. But we must not forget that we need fine arts, visual arts and graphic grads too.
Every year, we see around 70,000studens fail in Intermediate exams inTelangana alone. Most of the students need not waste their valuable time and energy to pass the exam. They can try alternative courses, in fine arts and visual arts etc. That way, they can come up in life and fare better.
Remember, Hyderabad will soon become a major global hub for gaming and VXF movies. That industry needs a large number of grads with skills and talent in fine arts, visual arts and graphic designing.
