Delhi government plans to push vocational education for school children in a big way. Simar Singh reports“Our dream is to make Delhi a knowledge hub of leadership in the next four and a half years,” said Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in a blunt but ambitious speech at the Capital’s India Habitat Centre on Wednesday (19 August). In the interactive session on ‘Making Delhi the Knowledge Hub of India’ which was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Sisodia made a case on the need to make a paradigm shift in the approach to education, inviting participation from the industries. Taking a jab the central government’s “misplaced” focus on creating facilities like toilets, Sisodia said that that was only “the first and not the ultimate step” calling for an emphasis on research to develop techniques and programmes to strengthen education and make it more valuable. “Before this event I was at an education policy meeting where there was just talk of mid-day meals and giving out sanitary napkins to girls in school, which is undeniably important, but there was no talk about policy and where we want education to go,” he claimed. In line with the country-wide skill development wave, the Delhi government plans to push vocational education for school children in a big way, with plans to roll out a programme this September, and will announce the Delhi Skill Development Scheme sometime this year. Sisodia also spoke about the state government’s ‘Be a Teacher’ concept which wants to draw successful personalities to take a few classes. President Pranab Mukherjee, as a part of this, is expected to teach a government school class on the eve of teacher’s day to “honour the teaching community”.
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Lakmé Lever, a subsidiary of Hindustan Unilever Limited and Aptech Ltd, a global education and training company has joined hand to establish beauty training academies across India.This alliance between Lakme, the most admired Indian beauty brand and Aptech, synonymous with high quality education and vocational training will significantly improve the quality of talent in the exponentially growing beauty services industry.Ninad Karpe, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Aptech, said, “Beauty and Wellness industry in India has been growing exponentially. According to a recent report by NSDC, this sector will require 1.42 crore additional skilled professionals in 2022, making it one of the fastest growing job creator. Aptech has always been at the forefront for providing industry based training and we believe that there is a plethora of career opportunities for professionals in the beauty and wellness industry. Our partnership with Lakme is aimed at bringing the expertise in training and the beauty industry under one roof. With this alliance, we aim to bridge the skill gap in this booming sector, while ensuring that the youth are empowered to be successfully employed in this field.”The partnership intends to set up 100 academies to train 50,000 stylists across India over the next five years. Lakme will design content and course modules, train trainers and certify students while Aptech will be responsible for the entire academy operations. Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech, will offer both foundation and advanced level training in skin, hair and make-up. The courses will integrate soft skills development into the technical curriculum to ensure that students deliver great results and a delightful experience.Pushkaraj Shenai, Chief Executive Officer, Lakmé Lever said “The Rs 15,000 cr beauty and wellness services industry is at an inflection point. Beauty and grooming is amongst the most lucrative career alternatives for talented girls and boys. Apart from lucrative remuneration a talented beauty professional has exposure to the backstage glamour of shows, films and events.”With 250 salons today Lakme Lever is all geared up to help reach its growth target of opening two new salons each week. With rapid growth, Lakme Salons will be an assured avenue for placement and a lucrative career for students who excel in the courses. A rapidly growing beauty industry and Lakme Salon network, the strong brand equity and capability of Lakme and Aptech and assured placement for top performers makes Lakme Academy powered by Aptech a smart career move for students. Aspiring entrepreneurs who are passionate about vocational training and beauty will find owning a Lakme Academy franchisee, a rewarding and sustainable business.(BW Online Bureau)
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If the FTII protest continues, future aspirants will be left with no option but to turn to private film academies, writes D.P. Sharan With the intervention of Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi and political activist Yogendra Yadav into about two-month old students' strike in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), the unrest on the campus is unlikely to be resolved soon. If striking students are encouraged with outside political support, the Government has virtually refused to succumb to political pressure from the opposition. But the pertinent question about the locus standi of the striking students to oppose the appointment of the head of the institution, Chairman Ganjendra Chauhan, that has been duly made by the Union Government, and the determined stand of the Government against their demand - remains unanswered. Indeed, the striking students are enjoying support from Bollywood veterans while the Government has its own justification in denying the removal of Chauhan from his post. But is Bollywood in right earnest about expressing concerns about the students' careers? Or, is the Government steadfast in its denial merely to protect the interests of the institution? Interestingly, if the students claim that Chauhan is not qualified for the post, their supporters from Bollywood - barring a few - have hardly any right to beat their chests in righteous indignation for the wellbeing of the students as they are neither products of the FTII nor do they know functioning of the institute. Most of them, in fact, have strongholds in Bollywood due to their family background and they never required to be taught about film-production from FTII. On the other hand, there are lapses on the part of the Government that it did not go for the best possible option it had while appointing the Chairman to the institution. If the official reply to the query under the RTI Act is to be believed, the Government had innumerable choices that included the names of film industry's stalwarts like Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Amir Khan, Rajnikant, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Jahnu Baruah, Raju Hirani, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, Ramesh Sippy and Govind Nihlani besides that of Gajendra Chauhan for the post of Chairman of FTII. The Government preferred to remain silent about why the big names were set aside. As per the 281-page official dossier - made available by RTI which included detailed resumes of stalwarts of Indian Cinema - a single paragraph resolution was all that was shown to justify Chauhan's appointment. The resolution envisages that Chauhan played the role of Yudhisthir in B.R. Chopra's TV serial Mahabharat and acted in about 150 movies and 600 TV serials. Details about his educational and professional qualifications were, however, not provided by the Government under RTI. As far as implication of the present stir is concerned, neither the students nor the Government will reap any benefit without an amicable truce. While the students - who are presumed to have received political support - are unlikely to develop cordial relations with Chauhan even if they reconcile to withdraw the agitation under duress, the Government will suffer a major loss of face if it has to succumb to the pressure from the opposition and replace Chauhan. The stir, however, will satisfy the ulterior motives of forces aspiring to gain political mileage and a professional edge as well. Rahul Gandhi has already pledged to lend all out support to the demand of the students and if the Government succumbed to the demand of the students, it would implicitly provide impetus to his arduous attempts to sway the youth. Apart from the political support being lent to the agitation, possibility of a well-hatched conspiracy to reap professional benefits in the garb of standing by the stir cannot be ruled out. The FTII is supposed to have been a stumbling block in the growth of different private film academies situated in the country and abroad as well. Since this Government-owned premier institution offers cost-effective courses to aspirants in particular, it poses a major threat to the survival of these private film academies. In comparison to Bollywood veteran Subhash Ghai-owned Whistling Woods International Film Institute and New York Film Academy, FTII offers attractive courses at low costs. In fact, FTII receives Government grants while WWI and NYFA have to manage with their own resources instead. If FTII official records are to be believed, about four lakh students appear every year for admission in the institution. Although FTII is unable to accommodate most of the aspirants for want of infrastructure, private film academies fail to cash-in on the situation by wooing those who are denied by the FTII owing to the high cost of their courses. If agitation in the FTII prolongs, future aspirants will be left with no option but to turn to private film academies. Striking students are, however, presumably not only enjoying political support to continue with their stir but they are being provided with financial aid too from outside the campus to maintain a status quo for obvious reasons, a senior official at I & B Ministry believes. A veteran film producer and chief of a Government-owned film regulatory body requesting anonymity claimed that "private film academies are such temples where gods have not yet descended and as such, the interests of FTII must be protected at any cost for future of the film industry." Former Information & Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewary contended: "It is onus on the Government to protect its premium institutions and it cannot run away from its responsibility to restore amicable academic atmosphere on the FTII campus as such." (The views expressed in this column are personal)
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Why are B Tech placements in most of the private colleges consistently becoming worse? Neeraj Pathak explainsReaders, by the time you read this article, I am sure you must have flipped through at least half a dozen news items on start ups' and billion dollar valuations of companies started by people in their early 20s, most of them B Techs. You might also think there couldn't be a better time than now to get an engineering degree. It is partly correct but mostly incorrect. Amidst the startup party season, here is the real story of the average engineering graduate which is missing the headlines and needs to be told. This story is of confusion, pessimism, wasted talent and depression. Meet Saurabh, a 2012 B Tech from a Greater Noida based engineering college. When he joined the college in 2008, his yardstick to select the college was based on the placement figures the college boasted off in its advertisements. Guess the number! It was 100 per cent campus placements. Years passed by and parental pressure started to 'set in'. Cut April 2012- His father called him up from Varanasi and enthusiastically asked," So, how many companies are coming to the college? I heard TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra are big campus recruiters. It will be great if you could land up a job with Infosys, we will also get to visit Bangalore" That year, none of the above mentioned companies visited his college. Rounds of heated conversations, strikes, dharnas and mass bunks resulted in a meeting with the head of placements of his college. Students efforts to build pressure on the management yielded some results-albeit., too little and too late. They were fleeced into attending pool campus events and fake companies. As expected, pool campus did not get him through even a screen test which was hastily done by the organizing college and shady offers most students did not opt for. On one hand, his father had set high expectations and on the other he was crumbling under pressure of his inability get a software job. As I write this article, this is the situation majority of our engineering graduates are facing right now. Last week, when he visited our office in search of a job opportunity, I overheard his conversation with one of my team members and resolved to help him find a suitable job that befitted his qualification and aspirations. With some efforts, I was able to help him get a job as a business analyst with an industry chamber in Delhi. I asked him to meet me in a week's time since his joining that job. He came in and said," I have quit that job too". I was speechlessness and said," what! you left that job in less than a week? It gave you a stable career with a handsome salary and you quit? It is so unfortunate, 3 years you have been jobless, when you get a decent one, you leave it. Tell me why!", I was fuming at Saurabh. With a blank and expressionless face, he explained," I am a B Tech; I did not find the job interesting enough. I want to get into a technical, "coding" job. I want to have a great work environment and these things were missing in that office. It was dull and I just don't want to live my life that way." Saurabh is again unemployed and like always, may join another BPO in a few days’ time as a stop gap arrangement in his quest for a software job. Saurabh epitomizes the ailment we suffer as a society. Job seekers, their parents, peers etc who influence career choices are inflexible about emerging job opportunities. So there are jobs in business intelligence, consulting firms, sales & marketing and new age startups which have no inhibitions in trying out with freshers and non MBA students. The essential skill sets for most of these jobs are a person's ability to be logical, being solution oriented, target driven and being very agile to situation. The question which emerges is that why are B Tech placements in most of the colleges (private) particularly, consistently becoming worse? I was also curious to understand this. I met the campus placement heads of one of the IT companies mentioned above. He pointed out three reasons for it. 1st: Lack of quality student pool in most of the colleges. 2nd: Automation taking over jobs done by humans in a steady manner. 3rd: The HR decision makers in companies preferring certain colleges over other campuses for reasons best known to them. He explained," My boss bought a car within 3 months of our campus placement process which is unthinkable vis-a-vis the salary that he is paid. So you can understand where the money comes from." The appetite to accept reality is seldom strong but job seekers and their parents/family must understand they need to decide and decide fast. Quality of jobs and kinds of jobs are swiftly transforming and candidates who do not join the 'bandwagon' on time are in for very tough times. It is also important to understand that to start somewhere is better than not to start anywhere. Job seekers should join companies, ideally in 3 months of completing their degrees and if the job is not matching their desire, they should up-skill themselves through week end programs, intern-ships etc so that they are in sync with their goals and have some credentials to show whenever they get a relevant job opportunity. We are producing close to 1.5 million B Techs every year, almost 50 per cent of them are in Saurabh's situation. Think! Neeraj is the head of communications and knowledge alliances at Map My Talent consulting. He thrives off of making people feel empowered, inspired and get better careers. Most days, you can find him solving hiring problems for corporate and young job seekers get deserving careers. Twitter: @mrneerajLinkedin: neeraj Pathak map my talent
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Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad and its PGDM Executive students – hosted the ‘HR Conclave 2015-16’ focusing on the emerging challenges in HR and modern practices and the latest technologies in HR to deal with such challenges.As an interface between industry and academics, the conclave witnessed the presence of eminent HR personalities across the industries and provided a one to one interactive platform for faculty members and students to discuss the scope, challenges and career opportunities in the HR domain.Deepti Gupta, Manager - Corporate & Alumni Relations said that modern HR functions are now undergoing a lot of change. Today, HR is just not a department but a broad corporate concept. In the era of globalization and digital innovation, the role of Human Resource departments in any organization has become immensely challenging.The Conclave was aimed to offer a forum for the industry and academia to come together and share the latest knowledge and practices in the field of HR. It was attended by Sheetal Sandhu, AVP - HR, Evalue Serve, Gaurav Soni, Manager - HR, Birlasoft, Ranjan Tayal, Head, Ramco, Harsh Raj Jain, Manager Recruitment, Ebix, Vishal Singhwani, HR Business Partner, NIIT Technologies, and Rahul Krishna, Manager HR, Espire Infolabs, who shared their thoughts on opportunities in HR and created learning on the HR related best practices in their organisations.The conclave covered the topics such as HR technology, digital disruption in HR, emerging mobile technologies in recruiting, HR analytics – latest trends, organizational hiring trends, customized HR, women leadership initiatives, industry practices in interviewing techniques and employee satisfaction – Initiatives and challenges in today’s digital world to name a few.The experts shared valuable insights covering the aforementioned topics and engaged the students with one to one interactions.(BW Online Bureau)
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Owning a home that is comfortable and close to work is the dream of every Indian. Unfortunately, it remains a dream for most part of his life. Much of what a middle-class man is worth is assessed in the home he has. It is the subject matter of discussion on daily commutes on the Metro; much like the British discuss the weather. If the lucky ones manage to buy a house by the time they are 45, a new cycle, a new plot begins to see if a small flat can be got for the son-now-reaching-marriageable age. It is an endless struggle. Owning a home is essentially an urban problem. For the village or the small town dweller, a functional home has never been an insurmountable problem. Not as big as his richer cousins in cities who have to slave and save for an apartment as the total salary of 30 years of work!And things are getting worse. A recent survey by property brokers Jones Lang LaSalle showed that the average size of the already squeezed Mumbai apartment had shrunk by 26 per cent over the last five years. In Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai people had resigned themselves to living in 22 to 24 per cent smaller flats. Isn’t it really a trick played by the builders to make prices seem more affordable?It was therefore good, futuristic thinking on the part of the Narendra Modi government to seize on building ‘100 Smart Cities’ and ‘Housing for All by 2022’. It is a situation begging for something to be done. Pent up demand for urban homes is close to 16 million units. The periphery of cities is expanding in a reckless, unplanned manner, while the old, inner portions are crumbling and adding to the misery of the millions. That is why the vision of new, ‘smart’ cities has electrified the nation’s imagination; and everyone is talking of going the ‘smart’ way.For finance minister Arun Jaitley, who pulled the ‘100 Smart Cities’ rabbit out of his budget basket last year, the ‘smart’ nomenclature was probably borrowed from his ‘smart’ phone. Actually that is what it is!The ‘Smart City’ concept originated in Europe as a technology marvel to give people a seamless, hassle-free life; a city where homes, transportation and communication systems had been synchronised to perfection to growing human needs. It also meant building brand new cities from the first brick.In India, no one knows what a ‘smart city’ is. The PM, when he was Gujarat’s chief minister, kicked off the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) on 900 acres of land, near Gandhinagar, as a new-age ‘Smart’ City. But realism has dawned. The wild plans of building spanking, new cities in the middle of a desert at a cost of trillions of dollars has now given way to raising the level of existing Indian cities, providing them with affordable homes, mass, rapid transport systems and drains and water treatment plants.Similarly, there is confusion on what is an ‘affordable’ home. Builders describe it as anything less than Rs 50 lakh. In Mumbai, it is difficult to find a hovel for less than a crore. Probably the right definition is anything that stretches from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, depending on how much you earn and where you live.Cities indeed must be beautiful, and with an awesome skyline, but they must also be inclusive. They are the new engines of growth, but they must provide a roof and comfort to the millions who made the roads and built those spanking glass edifices. As the Prime Minister’s Office works overtime to choose the first 20 cities that will go ‘smart’, BW Businessworld brings to you a Collector’s Edition that unravels the government’s plans. Also read the spectrum of housing experts and corporate realtors giving you a critique of where we are going wrong.And as Independence Day nears, is there a better celebration than making ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan’ a national, fundamental right?(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)
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Sutanu Guru analyses how politicians fanned regional chauvinism and an anti-English mindset to destroy the lives of studentsIIT Roorkee has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. First came the news that it had expelled 73 students who failed to meet the basic academic performance criteria. After a messy court battle came news two days ago that IIT Roorkee has agreed to take back the students provided they fulfil academic criteria in the future. Then Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani told the Rajya Sabha on August 5 that 2,060 students had dropped out of the 16 IITs between 2012 and 2015. Similarly, 2,352 students dropped out of the 30 NITs in the same period. More revealing was the fact that the dropout rate of 30 per cent at IIT Roorkee was the highest. There are more “revealing” facts. A story in the Indian Express today says that 90 per cent of the drop outs are students who got admitted on quotas reserved for SC, ST and OBC students. An overwhelming majority of these students found their lack of English comprehension skills to be an insurmountable barrier. Most of these students at Roorkee are from Hindi heartland states and gave their Joint Entrance Exams in Hindi. But since virtually all teaching, reference material and interactions at IITs and NITs are in English, these students simply fail to cope. Virtually all the students expelled by IIT Roorkee and then taken back belong to this category. There is one such student who obtained 92 per cent in English in his board exams in Rajasthan and finds the English spoken in the classroom incomprehensible. There can be a debate on the elitism that prevails in these institutions of higher learning. There can also be debates about caste and class discrimination of the subtle and brazen variety that denies these students the opportunity to craft a career of their dreams. There can even be a debate on improving the efficacy and effectiveness of affirmative action in India. All that would be worthwhile. But who is really responsible for the plight of these students from Hindi heartland states? It is the politicians who are the real culprits, aided and abetted by “mother tongue” enthusiasts and activists. Between the 1970s and 1990s, two generations of politicians proclaimed their love for Hindi and publicly disdained English as an Imperial language. In states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, effective and basic teaching of the English language virtually vanished from the schools. The end result was a few generations of youngsters who lacked even the basic communication-written and spoken-skills in English. For long, these youngsters kept getting hoodwinked by politicians who kept thumping regional and language chauvinism. Of course, the same politicians ensured their own children got the best of “English” education. So the current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav was busy getting taught in “English” medium institutions in Karnataka and Australia when his father Mulayam Singh Yadav was publicly scorning English and computers. It is only after a brave new world of opportunities that opened up after the 1991 economic reforms that parents and youngsters realized they had been taken for a royal ride. None of these Hindi heartland students could get call center jobs because they lacked basic English skills. For that matter, they failed to get jobs as assistants and sales persons even n malls and super markets that sprung up across India; or in the tens of thousands of upscale restaurants and hotels that started catering to a growing middle class. Almost overnight, “English” coaching classes sprung up all over India. Today, even maids and drivers try their best to ensure that their children attend a “convent” school where English is the medium of instruction. But in the process, millions of young Indians from Hindi heartland states found themselves cut off from a booming world of new job opportunities. The lucky ones who had learnt English earned Rs 30,000 a month at call centers. Their friends who failed to learn even basic English became security guards earning maybe Rs 6,000 a month. The plight of the IIT Roorkee students is no different. Look at the irony of it. A student gets 92 per cent in English in the state board exams. But once inside a class room at IIT Roorkee, he can’t even understand what is being spoken. The author doesn’t agree with language chauvinists who insist that primacy must be given only to the “mother” tongue. They always point out Germany, France, China, Japan and South Korea to show these countries have done exceedingly well without English. Well, the fact is that there is just one language that is overwhelmingly dominant in these countries. In India, there are more than 30 “dominant” languages. Hindi was tried as a “national” language. Mercifully that imposition failed; and it is Bollywood movies that have done more to spread Hindi than chauvinistic north Indian politicians and activists. To be sure, take pride in your mother tongue and ensure it is taught well in schools. But please also ensure English is taught, and taught well in schools. It is nice to talk about Skill India and the demographic dividend. But without English, that will remain hogwash and a pipe dream.
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Indian School of Business (ISB) has launched the 7th edition of social venture competition ‘iDiya’ which is targeted at working professionals seeking to make a foray into for profit social enterprise.Aishwarya Tipnis, Lead Coordinator, iDiya, ISB, said, “iDiya was conceived in 2009 by the sheer determination of few Net Impact Club students who yearned to create a platform for social startups and young businesses that are changing the world. Last year we saw over 150 entries with startups focused on a host of diverse solutions. This year too we expect the entries to pour in from all across the world.”ISB has opened up iDiya this year to international participants for the first time.iDiya is designed as a platform for showcasing commercially viable, self-sustaining social business ideas in India and seeks to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship among young professionals who can participate in teams of two to four. The top three winners are eligible for prize money apart from being pitched for funding from social venture capital firms. Business ideas and plans that are entered for the competition, are evaluated by faculty, potential investors including social venture capital firms and social entrepreneurs and student evaluators. Submissions are evaluated on various parameters, including measurable social impact, criticality of the social need and sustainability of the enterprise.Shortlisted contestants are invited to ISB for an intensive 5-day boot camp, where industry experts, ISB faculty and local and national entrepreneurs help them train for challenges they would face in bringing their ideas and ventures to realisation. Teams are interfaced with potential investors and are matched with entrepreneurs and organisations that will mentor them for a certain period post-boot camp.Entries to the competition are open till 17 August 2015 from http://www.isb.edu/idiya(BW Online Bureau)
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