Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Industry and technical education bigwigs get together

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, February 14, 2007

State higher education minister, Sudarsan Roychoudhuri meet with representatives of various chambers of commerce in a bid to boost employment of engineers in Bengal.
Representatives from Indian Chamber of Commerce, Bengal National Chamber of Commerce, Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Bharat Chamber of Commerce, Calcutta Chamber of Commerce and Oriental Chamber of Commerce attended the meeting.
“We want to make our students employable and that is the main reason why I today met the representatives of various chambers of commerce to know what the industry actually wants out of an engineering graduate,” said Roychoudhuri.
Apart from industry bigwigs, officials from various technical institutes in the state attended the meeting. BESU, CU, JU and West Bengal Engineering and Science University, which affiliate all private engineering colleges in the state, were present. The representatives from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), in charge of preparing the syllabus for engineering courses in the country also gave their views.
The West Bengal State Council of Higher Education after looking into the suggestions provided by the industry will discuss the matter in March and prepare a guideline to solve the problems.
The business bodies were asked to provide input towards upgrading the syllabus. Roychoudhuri also asked the business leaders about what was restricting engineering graduates in Bengal from getting good jobs, and what the industry expected out of the freshers.
“We are trying to make an industry-institute partnership in the true sense of the term. I want the industry people to come and take classes in the technical colleges and universities, as this will ensure industry input in education,” said Roychoudhuri.
The higher education department has asked the industry representatives to tell the state which courses are essential and where more technical colleges need to come up.
However, the minister sidestepped any question about the exact number of unemployed engineers in Bengal. “We have data about the employed but none for those without jobs as they have never approached us with their details. We not only want to increase chances of employment of technical graduates but also want to ensure that the industry gets what it wants from Bengal in terms of technical manpower,” said Roychoudhuri.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com

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