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| Monday, November 03, 2008
“Students should learn entrepreneurial
skills too”
This will help them cope with retrenchment problem, says V-C
Tiruvannamalai: To help students of technical education cope
with retrenchment caused by the recession, they should be taught
entrepreneurial skills besides the core technical and soft skills,
Anna University Vice-Chancellor Mannar Jawahar has said.
At the graduation ceremony of Kamban Engineering College held
here on Friday, he stressed the need for quality education.
“It is imperative for institutions of higher learning
to maintain quality in education. Academics, administrators,
industrialists and policymakers alike are greatly concerned
about the quality in education in general and technical education
in particular. Whatever be the domain, the urgency to improve
quality is stronger than ever before.”
He said that recognising the new needs and meeting them with
innovative products and services of international standards
were necessary to maintain quality.
The quality of technical education could be maintained if only
the institutions kept themselves abreast of the innovations.
And students should make themselves employable even while preparing
themselves to start enterprises of their own. “This combination
will give students a competitive edge in the current market,”
Mr. Jawahar said.
The colleges should not neglect personal qualities and work
ethics. Many colleges were already involving students in case
studies, group discussions and self-analysis. Work ethics could
be taught through case studies and discussions. Another effective
means of instilling work ethics in students was mentoring: a
faculty member could act as a mentor for a small group of students.
To make such programmes successful, he reckoned, teachers need
to be trained in mentoring.
Highlighting the role of institutions in highlighting the importance
of entrepreneurship, the Vice-Chancellor said the correlation
between education and entrepreneurship had often been explored
in India, but the result was not encouraging.
“What exactly we mean by entrepreneurship? It is the ability
to start and run one’s own business or enterprise. In
other words, entrepreneurship is synonymous with self-employment.
For this, the knowledge gained from education has to be put
to the optimum use.”
One hundred and twenty-two students received their degrees.
Three best performing students received the Dr. Ambedkar, Anna
and Kalaignar awards, which each comprised a citation and Rs.10,000
in cash.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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