{"id":3,"date":"2009-04-15T23:45:16","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T22:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digital-citizen.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=3"},"modified":"2009-05-17T10:04:38","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T09:04:38","slug":"the-world-hitech-forum-focus-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/digital-citizen.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=3","title":{"rendered":"The World HiTech Forum – Focus India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by Muhammad Farmer Director of \u2018BITE\u2019 (the British Institute of Technology and E-commerce) the forum and took place in London on 8 October 2008.<\/em><\/h3>\n

Shiv Shankar Mukherjee High Commissioner, Republic of India speaking of the role of government said<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future skilled workforce of the world will be even more Indian than it is today\u201d and called for better collaboration between India and the UK: \u201cThe UK is 3 or 4th largest technology provider to India. We need to deepen this collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on \u2018The Knowledge Gap\u2019 Prof S Ramachandran, Vice Chancellor of the University of Madras, painted a contrasting picture of highly skilled people and poor people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we produce a large number of graduates – it is the quality we are concerned about.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that India\u2019s higher education system today does not produce all the skills required at the workplace and spoke frankly of the challenges faced by the Higher Education sector<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 25% of our technical graduates are regarded as \u2018employable\u2019 – and while the others may be well educated, they don\u2019t have the skills needed by the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are more detailed notes of the event:<\/p>\n

The Role of Government<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, High Commissioner, Republic of India<\/h3>\n

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Shiv Shankar Mukherjee<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/h6>\n

India is still experiencing very high rates of growth. The future will be about moving away from the \u2018heavy hand of government\u2019 – liberalisation in India is as much about \u2018mindset\u2019 as it is about changing government or operational structures especially in innovation.<\/p>\n

We all accept that technology change and innovation are key drivers of economic growth. Now we have self-confident global companies but we also have 300m of the world’s poor who need to see that the fruits of globalisation come to them as well. Nehru identified the use of science and technology for growth and this has continued. Diversity in India means we will have to constantly innovate.\u00a0 Look at Japan and Korea as examples of the benefits of investing in education and technology.<\/p>\n

India is emerging as a gobal R&D hub – over the past decade this has accelerated and contributed to economic growth. A large chunk of patents. Our advantage is the availabllity of highly educated english-speaking maths and science graduates.<\/p>\n

The sustained growth of 8.6 to 8.8% over the past 5 years is as much about the development of commercialisation and research as it is about liberalisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future skilled workforce of the world will be even more Indian than it is today\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

Skills and education are central – we produce more graduates every year than all of Western Europe combined. But while we have quantity, the quality is not uniform. We accept that this is a big challenge. The Knowledge Commission, which advises the PM, points out that while India has 300 universities, we still need 1,500 more if we are to meet the needs of the future economy. We will need to move very fast to improve provision and ensure quality. Skilled people are what we need and we need to get back to developing that. India is beginning to outsource to Mexico for example.<\/p>\n

\"View
View from the Conference Centre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The role of government will continue to be central in terms of the priorities and spend on improving the spread of quality education across the land and to continue to provide the educated people we need. As well as the highly qualified people – we also need the \u2018building blocks\u2019 of technical and support workers – this is an area the state has allowed to become moribund.<\/p>\n

\u201cUK is 3 or 4th largest technology provider to India.
\nWe need to deepen this collaboration.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u2018The Knowledge Gap\u2019<\/h2>\n

Professor S Ramachandran – Vice Chancellor – University of Madras<\/h3>\n

Professor Ramachandran painted a contrasting picture of highly skilled people and poor people. \u201cWhile we produce a large number of graduates – it is the quality we are concerned about.\u201d India\u2019s higher education system today does not produce all the skills required at the workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 25% of our technical graduates are regarded as \u2018employable\u2019 – and while the others may be well educated, they don\u2019t have the skills needed by the market.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhere we do produce good quality education this is also too expensive. If we want to sustain the growth we are seeing, we need to ensure access to high quality education. There is a potential for a \u2018demographic dividend\u2019 as we have large numbers of younger people. We can only turn this into an advantage if we can ensure the quality is good. Teaching quality is also an area for us to focus on. Need to invest more by paying good teachers better. The Knowledge Economy has to be supported by the update of core knowledge and update the curricula. Alongside the hard core of discipline knowledge, we also need to make sure we build on skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent jobs fair which 30,000 students attended with 20,000 jobs on offer – yet only 25% of the students ended up in jobs. They lacked the skills needed by business – communications skills, verbal skills and synthesis skills were all lacking. It\u2019s not that the students were poorly educated – they just weren\u2019t what the businesses needed. This was a wake-up call and the University has worked closely with the Indian Confederation of Business to overhaul courses.<\/p>\n

By 2010, we will have a shortage of 250,000 skilled graduates. And it\u2019s very hard to find students who want to do a PhD and learn to develop new knowledge. Moral imperative for government to improve access to PhD courses through improved scholarships. Need improved support from Research Councils. While the education system is strong in the country we need to work hard to \u2018fine tune\u2019 it to the needs of both the economy and the need to generate new knowledge.<\/p>\n

India needs 1,000,000 new teachers by 2010 – 2012.<\/p>\n

Q – From the audience \u201cWhat to do?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A – Need to turn graduates as \u2018job-seekers\u2019 in to graduates as \u2018job-providers\u2019 of 5m graduates a year only 1m go into jobs. We need revolutionary reform to boost their confidence and make them more entrepreneurial and get them to generate new businesses and new jobs. Can\u2019t happen overnight – the numbers are large but we need to make progress. The education sector is the most neglected and it\u2019s difficult to attract teachers to teach – they don\u2019t get paid enough. We have vacancies and they are generally applied for by teachers who are not qualified.<\/p>\n

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