NATIONAL SEMINAR ON EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN UK AND INDIA
11 February 2016, Ball Room, Hotel Leela, Mumbai
Bombay Chamber organised a National Seminar on Education and Employment Opportunities in UK and India as a part of UKIERI activity with the objective of stimulating interaction amongst educational institutes and industries from UK and India, showcasing skill development and educational initiatives of British Council.
Mr. Pravin Rane, Assistant Director, Bombay Chamber briefed the audience regarding Bombay chamber’s initiative under UKIERI project. He emphasised on Bombay Chamber’s initiative regarding capacity building of SMEs through trainings in the area of business processes and soft skills.
Dr. Adil Malia, Group President – HR, Essar Group was the Chief Guest at the seminar. He presented perspectives on changing global scenario in the context of employment opportunities and the changing role of educational institutes. In a global environment; the concept of money, boundaries of market and business domain keeps on changing with changes in technology. Every time it creates a new equilibrium by disrupting the old one. In the long run, human resource is a sole factor of value creation. It is this pivot around which the value of other factors gets decided. Therefore, educational institutes have major responsibility of creating learning mindset, developing the technique of unlearning things, adapt to new systems and building a sense of curiosity among the students. It will help them to explore new employment opportunities.
On behalf of Dr. S.K.Mahajan, Director –Technical, Govt. of Maharashtra; Prof. Y. I. Shah, Officer on Special Duty, made a presentation. He focused on Training opportunities in Maharashtra where he pointed out initiatives taken by Directorate of Technical Education in the area of creating knowledge pools, skill and training development program, building autonomous institutes, self finance institute etc. At the onset of globalisation, there is need of evolution of education sector with much broader perspective where skill training program are equally important along with educational qualification. He pointed out; there is mismatch between the outflow of graduates and the rate of employment opportunities created. Hence there is a need to explore new fields and developed opportunities rather blindly following the trend.
Mr. Glen McMahon, International Project Manager at Belfast Metropolitan College, Northern Ireland spoke about Employer Engagement on an International Stage. He gave overview of Belfast Metropolitan College and the policies which college adopt to make itself globally competitive for example – BMC used to set content & delivery of the course as per industrial demand apart from that they used to provide tailor made courses of short as well as long duration. He pointed out that for while identifying potential partnerships or formation of collaborations; they used to take a brief look at the history, journey of institution, investments into research department, ranking, courses offered etc. Hence he suggested all academic institutes should consider these points which will help them to attract foreign direct investment in education sector as well.
