Colleges should groom students to be entrepreneurs: Experts
Hyderabad: Experts at the 4th Higher Education Conference held in the city on Friday stressed on faculty development, technology interventions in course delivery and developing suitable eco-system to encourage students to become entrepreneurs, would play a key role in improving the standards in the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the country.
Welcoming the delegates Dr Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Business World said interface with the incubation centres at the HEIs with right kind of industry would help in innovating and improving the standards. And, the educational conclaves like this one would help in setting goals and take suitable action.
Prof T Papi Reddy, Chairman, Telangana State Council for Higher Education (TSCHE), said that the TSCHE wish to associate itself with the education conferences to discuss the contemporary issues, best practices, innovations and entrepreneurship. Besides, the key issues concerning the higher education to find solutions. Prof Pritam Singh, CEO LEAD and former Director IIM Lucknow said that every HEI should think that its mission is to create knowledge, dissemination of knowledge and application of it. And, this is one area where the HEIs in the country are lagging.
Finding fault with the many of those in the HEIs stop working once they become professors, he suggested introducing non-tenured employment for the faculty. He said that the job of a professor is not to answer the questions of his students, but, to ignite their minds. And, to ensure proper standards, the HEIs should demand excellence. It is where the statutory bodies like TSCHE could play a significant role.
For example, when a new course has to be introduced, it will have to get approval from the Academic Council (AC). But, the council members in some State universities go up to 100. And, most of the times, they end up in criticising the university on various counts. This leaves the Vice-Chancellors not able to think of any productive outcomes. To address this, there should be a new governance model in the higher education to transform the HEIs mission into action.
ICFAI Vice-Chancellor Prof J Mahender Reddy, the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education said that the role of a vice-chancellor is to get good faculty, in turn, they could nurture, creativity and innovation among the students.Chief Guest, Executive Chairman, CYIENT Technologies, B V R Mohan Reddy asked the Vice-Chancellors and other representatives from the academia to take into consideration the rapid changes taking place on the technological, demographical and geopolitical fronts. He said that it is not the students but the faculty where the problem lies. And, it should be ensured that better-educated products should come out of the systems.