On the occasion of Indian School of Business'(ISB) 15th anniversary at Mohali campus, President Pranab Mukherjee and Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar addressed the institute's faculty, alumni and students.
Mukherjee stated that 600 million youth under the age of 25 will be added to India's population by by 2030.
It can prove to be an asset and generate enormous wealth in India and the world, provided these young people are trained, educated, skilled and competitive.
However, if the educational institutions fail to prepare the youth for the new challenges, the demographic dividend may turn into a demographic disaster.
Two obvious question come to mind: are India's mushrooming educational institutions ready? What sort of changes or modifications should an institutional leader make to contribute into the demographic dividend?
The president recalled the noble laureates of India. "From 1931 onwards, no one from India except C.V. Raman received Noble Prize working in an Indian university. After that more than 85 years have passed. Not a single Indian working in Indian university has received this distinction working in an Indian university," he said.
Dr Amartya Sen, Dr Har Gobind Khorana and other Indian Nobel laureates had to continue their research and work in foreign universities. The primary reason, the president emphasised, is a dearth of conducive environment and appropriate atmosphere in most Indian universities.
His appeal to "improve quality" in more than 753 universities, 36,000 colleges and several other institutions was reinforced in Javadekar's speech about the dream of creating '20 World Class Universities'.
Javadekar articulates Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of quality education and academic freedom through National Institutional Ranking Framework to list top 10 world class public universities and 10 world class private universities of India.
In context to the commemorative speeches by distinguished guests, Pradeep Singh, CEO of ISB, Mohali campus, spoke about how ISB students and faculties could contribute to demographic dividend.
He said ISB since its inception has engaged the youth and made them ready for the world. Students who are interested to become entrepreneurs are given a favourable environment to nurture their skills at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
That is how ISB has more than 400 startups, Singh said. On the other hand, students who are interested in academics are given equally conducive environment for research at the institute.
On the quality of teachers at the mushrooming institutions, he said the Centre for Learning and Management Practice (CLMP) is responsible for the capacity building in the area of teaching, learning, and management practice at ISB.
This centre aims at imparting training through case study based classes, similar to that of premier management universities.
CLMP creates world class case studies based in India to make them more relevant and contextualized. The centre has more than 160 to 170 India based case studies.
"We look forward to partner with more management institutes in future to mentor and share our learning processes and materials," Singh said.
