HYDERABAD: Stating that about 45 per cent of management and 48 per cent of engineering students in the country are unemployed, NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar on Thursday stressed on advan-cement in higher education, specifically in management colleges.
Addressing the ‘Higher Education Dialogue’, a virtual event organised by Indian School of Business (ISB), Dr Kumar expressed concern on the decreasing strength in higher education in the country. He said that higher education institutions have registered only 37 per cent strength. Dr Kumar said that higher education is stagnant in the country and consequently, institutions like ISB and IIM are also suffering from low enrolment.
Stressing on the quality of education, he said that management colleges should start job oriented courses like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Robotics etc to meet the industry needs.Emphasizing the need to understand the industry needs, Dr Kumar said that institutions should also adopt flexible courses, on the lines of US, UK, Japan and some European countries that keep upgrading themselves. He said that the Centre has introduced National Educational Policy to improve enrolments and is expecting good results from it.
Stressing over the research and development Dr Kumar said that India spends only 0.8 per cent of its budget on R&D annually, resulting in the country lagging far behind in innovation, while countries like South Korea spends 4.5 per cent of their budgets and are masters in R&D.
Emphasising that all management institutions must come together, he said that collaboration between multiple institutions will produce good results and collaborating with the other institutions will help enhance the quality of education among the students.