Bridging the skill gap between industries all india council of technical education (AICTE)

BHUBANESWAR: Bridging the skill gap between industries and technical graduates and employability of three to four lakh diploma holders passing out from various polytechnics every year in the country is a worrying factor, said chairman of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), A T Sahasrabudhe here on Saturday. He was speaking at the Regional Convention on Polytechnic Education in Eastern States. "Over seven lakh diploma holders pass out from our polytechnics every year of whom around three to four lakh fail to get jobs. NASSCOM, CII and other industry bodies deny jobs to them saying that they don't have necessary skills required. So skilling our technical students and making them job ready is very important," said Sahasrabudhe.

To bridge the skill gap AICTE has decided to give autonomy to the engineering colleges and polytechnics to device and launch new courses, which are relevant to their immediate neighbourhood and industries thereby creating more jobs and improving employability of local youth. "The institutes would prepare a report and send it to us. If we find it practicable then we give them approval to run the course," he added.

Giving emphasis on industry-academia interaction, the AICTE has also decided to recruit 20 % of faculties in technical institutes to be recruited from various industries. Besides, AICTE has also plans to tie up with Linkedin, a social media, consultancy firm to provide jobs to trained graduates.

Skill development and Technical Education secretary, Sanjay Kumar Singh said, "The employment situation as a dichotomy in Odisha with huge requirement by the industry but no skilled manpower to serve and seats remain vacant. In every sector there is a huge demand supply gap including IT, mining, infrastructure and manufacturing but industries complain lack of skills among ur youths." To cater to students in rural areas AICTE has developed a learning platform 'Swayam' through which students can take video lessons by experts anytime, anywhere and through any device. "A total 200 courses will be uploaded for three lakh students in the web platform to be launched in a month or two. Of the total credits 20% scores will be linked to these courses and students can get certificates by giving examinations," Sahasrabudhe said adding around 2000 new courses will be launched in next three years.

Expressing concern over large scale vacant seats in technical institutes, AICTE chairman said, "Around 200 technical colleges seek approval for close down every year due to lack of students. We are going to relax the infrastructure norms and guidelines required for approval like separate classrooms and laboratories for degree and diploma courses. Even institutes can run evening courses in the same building provided with adequate and qualified faculties." AICTE has also planned to launch Hackathon- a 36-hour long competition among technical graduates, who would to device digital solutions to local problems in various sectors including town planning, civic issues, agriculture, health and education.


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