JAMMU: “We are on borrowed time and it is time for all of us to buck up and change our attitude towards education, skilling, industrial growth and employment” said Prof. (Dr.) Neharika Vohra, Vice-Chancellor Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship University, New Delhi while delivering 9th Shri Ram Sahai Memorial Lecture on“Bridging Skill Gap through Industry Academia Partnership” organized by Indian Institute of Public Administration, JK Regional Branch.
While raising concerns about the quality of human capital, skill deficit, and unemployable graduates, Prof Vohra strongly advocated that both academia and industry cannot be complacent anymore, and should synergize their efforts and come forward to handle the issue of talent depth in the country. According to her, the education sector should rethink and design an effective curriculum through intensive collaboration with the industry to define required skills at a detailed level. Further there is a need to develop indicators to measure levels of core employability skills, create, adapt and develop new assessment methods that reflect the core work skills and competences of learners.
Further highlighting the role of the industry in reducing the skill deficit, she said that industry should be willing to come into the classroom, engage with the students, provide internship opportunities, co-create curriculum which is of relevance to them. According to her, industry should pay a premium for skill and therefore appropriate incentives for skilling and learning should be visible. Industry needs to move away from lazy categorizations of talent and recognize the skilled workforce.
Dr. Ashok Bhan, IPS (Retd), Patron of IIPA-JKRB while remembering the contributions of Late Sh. Ram Sahai said he was a charismatic & seasoned entrepreneur who was way ahead of times and contributed towards issues of social relevance. He said that educated unemployment is a matter of serious concern and suggested that suitable interventions should be made by both academia and industry to handle this issue which affects the youth of the country.