Bridging Higher Education & Industry Needs
"Where are the good guys?" This a common question haunting employers looking to hire skilled resources in the 21st century job market. The issue is not limited to freshers alone, but concerns the widening gap between available and required skill-sets. The challenges and opportunities of the issue were anaylised at a recent HT Media panel discussion - 'Bridging Higher Education & Industry Needs - A Global Perspective'.
(L-R) The panel comprised of Prof Henry S Bienen - president emeritus, Northwestern University; Prof Dipak Jain - former dean of Kellogg School of Management; session anchor Charu Sudan Kasturi of HT Media; Adam Gutstein - vice chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers; Rajiv Verma, chief executive, HT Media
On one hand, this education-employability mismatch points to the inadequacy of educational institutions in providing students the right skill-set needed to become employable.
The other aspect is about the need for companies to invest in upgrading and re-skilling their employees to help them keep pace with the changing needs of the industry. Companies have in-house training programs but that's limited to a select bracket and not adequate to cover majority of the employees.
So, what about options for re-skilling available to an individual aspirant? While we have B-schools offering executive management education but these programmes are primarily aimed at the higher-end of the spectrum, missing out on the mid-level segment that comprises a large population of the workforce. The need of the hour is a platform that gives a broader audience a chance to excel.
To cater to this need gap in quality executive education, India Education Services Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between HT Media Ltd and US-based Apollo Global Inc, has introduced the Bridge School of Management.
Moving beyond conventional MBA degrees, the Bridge School of Management will open doors to new career-building opportunities with its customised corporate programmes to suit different industry sectors.
Talking of HT's initiative in driving this educational venture, Rajiv Verma, chief executive at HT Media emphasised the need to think long-term as it's about creating better opportunities and making the world a better place. "Doing well and doing good are not two mutually exclusive goals," he said.
Such an initiave of bringing together the academic and the corporate sides to bridge the skill gap is "about a journey from success to significance", "encouraging a culture of giving back to the society", in the words of Prof Dipak Jain. He also believes, "In the quest for education, chronological age should not be a constraint, it's mental age that matters."
Adam Gutstein pointed in the same direction, when he said, "The minute you stop learning, it's the minute you stop growing; and it's the minute you start dying!"
