Pune Speak Up:KG to PG industry route: Will it work?

Our institutes and universities should have global-level syllabus
We need to change our traditional syllabus. Education skills of students passing out of colleges should match the demand of the industry. At present, educated students are there, but they do not have the skills needed by the industrial world and hence they remain jobless. We have to change this scenario by giving vocational training. It can be done only by overhauling our syllabus. As a part of it, we have decided to take help from prominent industrialists. The future economy will be knowledge-based. Those who have knowledge and skills will get jobs and thrive in competition. So, the need of the hour is to acquire knowledge. For that, educational institutes have to improve themselves to impart quality education. Our institutes and universities should have global level syllabus. Then only will we be able to compete with other world-class universities. We have decided to add vocational training courses to the syllabi at various levels. As a result, no one will remain jobless in the future. Either they will get jobs in suitable industry or will be self-employed. To impart quality education, we have also decided to recruit trained teachers for each educational institute. 
—Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra 

Students should be exposed to ind, agri, commerce at school level
We have to know what are the changes the government is planning to make the school or higher education syllabus industry-friendly. They have to spell it out and then only we can talk about it. It is better that at school itself students get exposed to a choice of option like industry, agriculture, commerce etc. and not wait till higher education. In this way, those who want to go into industry or agriculture or any other sector, have a choice to start learning from the school level itself. 

—Arun Firodia, chairman, Kinetic Group 

KG to std 7 students are not prepared to absorb industry knowledge
Definitely, the government’s decision to make KG to PG syllabus industry-friendly is a move in the right direction. The reality is that eventually everyone gets absorbed towards the commerce direction. However, I feel it is not necessary to expose kindergarten to 7 grade schools to industry skills, as they are not even prepared to absorb such knowledge. Starting industry-friendly syllabus from standard 8 to 10 onward will be right to expose them to the industry skills or knowledge. I don’t agree that such a move by government may prove to be harmful to the overall growth of students. The developments that are happening in the industry is always ahead of the education system. The education system has to update itself and go along with what is happening in industry. Definitely, there is a gap and the statistics also indicate it. 
—Ajeenkya Patil, chairman, DY Patil Group 

School or college syllabus is not creativeand right brain-oriented 
Education was designed to meet the need of the industry, which is why they put maths and languages on top, humanities second and arts coming last. This way, we are already killing creativity and the growth of the right brain. Today, we say that we have progressed so much, but we were just educating the head and not going below the head to the heart. The school or college syllabus we have right now is not creative and right brain oriented. With this government’s proposal, how much more they want to make the schooling and college education industry-friendly. Creativity happens in the right brain and our education system is just oriented towards left brain. The left brain does repetitive jobs and you are seeing the US is outsourcing left brain jobs to India, which we are training our people for. I don’t mind the government redesigning the school and college syllabus, but I hope they do not revert to old methods. We are born with creativity but our education system kills that creativity till we graduate. Only getting stuck with computers is not education or life. 
-—George Judah, Former DG, Rajarambapu Institute of Business Management 

It will not be feasible to bring any drastic change in the syllabus
The current school and college syllabus already has industry and academic representation. I do not understand what is more that can be added to make it more industry-specific. When the government says that the current KG to PG syllabus has to be industry-friendly, we also have to make sure that changes also have to be teacher-friendly so that they are in a position to impart it to students. All these initiatives look good on paper, but difficulties arise when it comes to implementation part. The real difficulty for students today is getting jobs post-graduation. Therefore the governmnet should concentrate more campus placements. All said and done, it would be better if the governmnet implement their vocational skills proposal through the Star scheme of the HRD department of the Central government, which is being implemented at the national level. With the current infrastructure available in schools and institutes, it will not be feasible to bring any drastic change in the state education syllabus, because when implementation comes they may fall short. 
—Ketan Deshpande, chairman, FUEL NGO