Digital Adda - Best Practices to bridge the Talent demand supply gap
- Robotic Process Automation
Today the times and talent needs of the Industry have changed dramatically and continue to do so, while the syllabus and course content for students has been fixed since decades and not changed much. The need of the hour is finetuning and aligning what higher education institutes are teaching with Industry needs.
NASSCOM FutureSkills Prime hosted a virtual round table on the topic “Skill based learning – The Change Agents”.The primary role of change will be played by academia. If we can improve the quality of people graduating from our education system, one of the biggest challenges faced by employers today will be addressed
The round-table or ‘Digital Adda’ as we like to call it had eminent academicians sharing their best practices on how they have changed the game in their institutions to prepare an industry ready workforce. The session was moderated by Sridevi Sira, Lead FutureSkills Academia.
Importance of Faculty Training
Faculty training is by far the most important element in raising the bar of an academic institution. Prof (Dr) Anish Gupta explained that at the Apex Institute of Technology, Chandigarh University, any course that is being taught to the students, needs the faculty to be trained before they can teach. This needs to be done ahead of the curve. That is, if the institute is introducing any course in 2023, then the faculty is trained by 2022.
At MGM University, Prof S B Pawar told the group that they have leveraged the FutureSkills Prime portal to ask faculty members to conduct a self-appraisal.
This is simple to do since the programs are self-paced, moderately priced and aligned to the national occupational standards. With courses backed by certifications, VIT used the platform to ensure that in their faculty development programs, teachers take at least one certification per year. The idea of getting teachers to do continuous learning and monitoring it through assessments and certifications is the reason that learners are also doing well in these institutions.
Multi-disciplinary courses
How work is done is changing rapidly. With matrix organisation structures, cross-functional teams and overlapping domains multi-disciplinary education opens up a students world, preparing them for the a real-world work environment. MGM has new multi-disciplinary courses as well as advanced incubation centres. Prof Satish Paruchuri shared that since a multi-disciplinary approach is essential in research and to solve real world problems, Sri Vishnu and BVRIT have established centers of excellence or labs where students from different disciplines for e.g., mechanical and electronics engineering come together and try to work on automotive, robotic or mechatronic projects. The Institute is using SSC NASSCOM qualification packs and NSQF alignment to prepare the syllabus since the skills framework has been created by industry is adheres to the national occupational standards and is government approved.
Incorporating skills into the credit framework
Many of the speakers commented on the advantage of using the approved qualifications for designing their courses that the IT Sector Skills Council offers. Under the unified credit framework, these NSQF level aligned courses will automatically be eligible for course credits for learners, opening vast opportunities to skill while they learn.
MGM has introduced radical reforms in terms of assessment and evaluation as key strategies to fill the talent gap. It is running a pilot initiative in the current semester where students complete level six and seven NSQF level courses under the mentoring of a faculty. First year students are mandated to complete the Digital 101 course.
Leveraging External Resources
Anish Gupta shared that students undertake Industrial Projects under IBM, TCS and Virtusa mentors to further their employability quotient.
To the point that whose responsibility is it to make the students industry ready, Dr Kishor Buddha, GITAM University, reasoned that with resources being available, the onus has shifted to the individual to learn on their own. He narrated an incident where only 5 out of 700 students who were provided a lecture, participated in the Cisco hackathon.
Dr Karthikeyan S., Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) said that having understood the demands of the industry and the gap in demand and supply of talent, the institute has co-opted industry members on Board of Studies and has tweaked the syllabus according to their requirements. A big plus point has been the collaboration with NASSCOM for the FutureSkills Prime Program where the institute mandated all pre-final year students to take four courses – IoT, Cybersecurity, Product Design, and Data management. 7400 students benefitted last year and 8400 students have registered in the current year. VIT has also provided flexible credit system with additional credits for courses completed on FutureSkills Prime. More than 3000 students with NASSCOM certifications bagged summer internships across almost 600 companies.
Adding to this, Dr R S Bichkar of Vidya Pratishthan's Kamalnayan Bajaj Institute of Engineering and Technology said that the best part about FutureSkills Prime is that it is a NASSCOM initiative where the software industry has provided content which is suitable for students, and courses are very well suited for becoming industry ready and job ready. Government has also incentivized this program and students can get financial support by completing these courses and getting certified.
In the same thread, Rakesh Singh elaborated that FutureSkills Prime has a vast repository of learning programs with relevant industry certification not only on emerging technologies but also professional skills. Bennett University has introduced specialized courses in emerging technologies these are foundational courses for first year students. second year students take up relevant research projects and from third year onwards students take up industrial projects.
The initiatives taken by these change agents are a role model for others educational institutes to achieve our objective to bridge the talent demand supply gap and work towards making India the Digital Talent Hub of the world.
The article is based on a panel discussion.
Listen to the full discussion here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzb3sm1vy-k&t=2895s