ndia Inc to Grow its own workforce

Two recent examples of large well-known Indian multi-national corporations making a foray to start university level institutions seem to be having the potential for changing the entire higher education scenario in India. While one Benglauru-based large IT enterprise has decided to start a university dedicated to create a set of trained educational administrators, the other a large Delhi-based IT hardware and software provider has announced recruitment of faculty for its engineering programmes.

It's a known fact that in last 3-5 years, the number of engineering/technical education colleges has nearly doubled from 1,700 to 3,400. The intake in BE/B.Tech/B.Arch programmes has grown up from six lakh to more than a million seats. However, the big lacuna felt in the HE scenario in india, is the lack of trained teaching manpower. Most of the teachers are fresh graduates with a BE or ME qualification without formal training in teaching methodology, pedagogical and classroom management skills, or ability to prepare time tables, curriculum transaction, creating learning or teaching plans.

This is perhaps where the education university envisaged by the Bengaluru based IT company seeks to make a difference. It seeks to create a pool of teachers trained in education management. The other seeks to add higher value to engineering programs. What exactly will be the differentiator is the question. It is doubtless that corporate houses have always made a difference to higher education by creating high quality institutions. Look at the list of top tier colleges in india that are backed by big corporate:

The Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS)- Pilani and at Mesra are backed by the well known house of Birlas. Several other names come to our mind. The PSG group and GRD Group in Coimbatore have the backing of well known textile and engineering industry houses in Tamil Nadu.
One can clearly see the correlation between the brand value of the corporate backer and the quality of the institution, because the corporate wants to ensure that its individual brand value is not eroded by offering sub-par standard of education. Naturally over a period of time, students and parents see value in aligning themselves with such institutions that lay emphasis on quality and brand of education offered.

Clearly, such institutions enjoy a big advantage that the administrators or management of such corporate backed institutions have a clearer vision of the kind of manpower they want to create. So far colleges have created engineering graduates, while the corporate backed institutions intuitively provide value added courses that convert a graduate into an employable professional or industry ready graduate.

The creation of the two institutions, clearly augur well for India's higher education scenario. Also the heads of well known corporate will be able to have their say in decision making bodies like the UGC or AICTE. The administrators will see value in the advice tendered by successful corporate heads, who can see the correlation better between education, employability and industry or economic needs. In countries like the United States of America most of the universities are supported by an industry in the state. Indian companies too should take cue from US model. In sum, the way corporate backed higher education institutions are run or perform can be a “best practice” for all other institutions to follow.