Specialisation in one field not good enough for future jobs, say educationists & employers
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Sujit John & Shilpa Phadnis | TNN
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Sahana Subramanyam is a
final year student at Azim Premji Uni versity in Bengaluru. She is ma
joring in economics and minoring in data science. She says she chose to
focus also on data science because it bridges the demands of economics
and her love for computer programming.
The university has a
compulsory course for all students in quantitative reasoning, under
which she chose to learn the Python programming language. In the data
science course, among other things, she has learnt R, a programming
language that enables you to manage and analyse massive data bases.
Sahana is already using Python to build a model for a research project on identifying how graded inequalities, such as caste, emerge in societies. “Programming languages allow you to use the power of the computer,“ Sahana says. It's a power that has touched extraordinary levels today .
Sahana's course combination allows her to do work that a traditional economics focused student would never be able to. “Take renewable energy , you cannot understand it without understanding economics, engineering, physics, politics.Real world is like that,“ says Anurag Behar, vice-chancellor of Azim Premji University. He is critical of the way India has fragmented education.
Many countries do not have this siloed approach to higher education. And today , as technology transforms the world, a growing number of educationists and employers believe it's time for India to move to a cross-disciplinary education system.
Sabina Dewan is co-founder and president of JustJobs Network, a thinktank based in Washington and New Delhi focused on finding solutions to create more and better employment. Dewan says a confluence of mega trends -technology , urbanisation, trade, migration, and climate change -is drastically reshaping the global employment. “The scale and pace of this is unprecedented and we are not equipped to understand how these will change jobs of the future,“ she says. So it is necessary to equip youths so they are flexible enough to respond quickly to a new context.
Sagar Paul, head of client services at technology consultancy ThoughtWorks, notes that businesses are already going through massive contextual changes. Earlier, a steelmaker may at best move into adjacencies like building automobile or white goods plates. Today , a Google moves from a search engine to autonomous cars.
“So it requires employees to be able to shift context quickly . We need change makers. We are not hiring for skills anymore, but a certain aptitude,“ he says.
Paul also notes that all enterprises have become consumerised, with the adoption of technology and services used by individuals in the workplace. So his employees also need to relate to people much more. “Customers are human beings, and we need to be able to have huge empathy for them. Empathy is much higher among those from the liberal arts, the performing arts. So we need artists who are technologists, technologists who are artists,“ he says, adding that India needs to introduce liberal arts into all curriculum.
Shraddhanjali Rao, head of human resources for India at enterprise software company SAP , brings in the imagery of a jungle gym and spider web to describe the kind of employee she values. A career, she says, is no more a ladder for you to grow in the same function one step at a time, but is a web of experiences across various functions and roles.
Paul Dupuis, CEO of Randstad India, which services the HR requirements of a number of large companies, says more Indian CEOs are discussing the need for multi-skilled employees. “Companies are looking for agile people who have a wide perspective. They want soft skills that might be acquired from a liberal arts back ground,“ he says.
Dewan of JustJobs believes changes must start at the school level and argues that six-month or one-year training programmes cannot make up for years of poor quality education.
Prof Jagadeesh Kumar, dean of academic courses at IIT Madras, says the institution wants its students to understand that as engineers, they can't say they will deal with only engineering problems.“Eleven per cent of the total coursework of a student involves working with disciplines including ethics, life skills, environment and political science,“ he says.
Balakrishnan Shankar, associate dean at the school of engineering at Amritapuri in Kerala, says students are looking to merge big data with biology and social science. “Theories that you learn in big data or engineering can be applied to population of birds, movement of sand dunes or census data,“ he says.
Rao of SAP says the ability to interpret and analyse data will soon become a base level expectation in all industries. This is why all undergraduate programmes at Azim Premji University have quantitative reasoning as a compulsory course. The university also has compulsory courses on public reasoning, which trains students on the art of public discussion, and on India, so that students can relate their core courses with the world outside.
With inputs from Ranjani Ayyar and Shalina Pillai
Nov 07 2017
:
The Times of India
(NaviMumbai)Sahana is already using Python to build a model for a research project on identifying how graded inequalities, such as caste, emerge in societies. “Programming languages allow you to use the power of the computer,“ Sahana says. It's a power that has touched extraordinary levels today .
Sahana's course combination allows her to do work that a traditional economics focused student would never be able to. “Take renewable energy , you cannot understand it without understanding economics, engineering, physics, politics.Real world is like that,“ says Anurag Behar, vice-chancellor of Azim Premji University. He is critical of the way India has fragmented education.
Many countries do not have this siloed approach to higher education. And today , as technology transforms the world, a growing number of educationists and employers believe it's time for India to move to a cross-disciplinary education system.
Sabina Dewan is co-founder and president of JustJobs Network, a thinktank based in Washington and New Delhi focused on finding solutions to create more and better employment. Dewan says a confluence of mega trends -technology , urbanisation, trade, migration, and climate change -is drastically reshaping the global employment. “The scale and pace of this is unprecedented and we are not equipped to understand how these will change jobs of the future,“ she says. So it is necessary to equip youths so they are flexible enough to respond quickly to a new context.
Sagar Paul, head of client services at technology consultancy ThoughtWorks, notes that businesses are already going through massive contextual changes. Earlier, a steelmaker may at best move into adjacencies like building automobile or white goods plates. Today , a Google moves from a search engine to autonomous cars.
“So it requires employees to be able to shift context quickly . We need change makers. We are not hiring for skills anymore, but a certain aptitude,“ he says.
Paul also notes that all enterprises have become consumerised, with the adoption of technology and services used by individuals in the workplace. So his employees also need to relate to people much more. “Customers are human beings, and we need to be able to have huge empathy for them. Empathy is much higher among those from the liberal arts, the performing arts. So we need artists who are technologists, technologists who are artists,“ he says, adding that India needs to introduce liberal arts into all curriculum.
Shraddhanjali Rao, head of human resources for India at enterprise software company SAP , brings in the imagery of a jungle gym and spider web to describe the kind of employee she values. A career, she says, is no more a ladder for you to grow in the same function one step at a time, but is a web of experiences across various functions and roles.
Paul Dupuis, CEO of Randstad India, which services the HR requirements of a number of large companies, says more Indian CEOs are discussing the need for multi-skilled employees. “Companies are looking for agile people who have a wide perspective. They want soft skills that might be acquired from a liberal arts back ground,“ he says.
Dewan of JustJobs believes changes must start at the school level and argues that six-month or one-year training programmes cannot make up for years of poor quality education.
Prof Jagadeesh Kumar, dean of academic courses at IIT Madras, says the institution wants its students to understand that as engineers, they can't say they will deal with only engineering problems.“Eleven per cent of the total coursework of a student involves working with disciplines including ethics, life skills, environment and political science,“ he says.
Balakrishnan Shankar, associate dean at the school of engineering at Amritapuri in Kerala, says students are looking to merge big data with biology and social science. “Theories that you learn in big data or engineering can be applied to population of birds, movement of sand dunes or census data,“ he says.
Rao of SAP says the ability to interpret and analyse data will soon become a base level expectation in all industries. This is why all undergraduate programmes at Azim Premji University have quantitative reasoning as a compulsory course. The university also has compulsory courses on public reasoning, which trains students on the art of public discussion, and on India, so that students can relate their core courses with the world outside.
With inputs from Ranjani Ayyar and Shalina Pillai
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