Let us take the campuses to the corporates..
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The process of transforming the Campus Colts to Corporate throughbred should start in all earnest. The Instituitions should act as breeding ground and provide scaffolding to facilitate the process.
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We have seen that, the boom in IT outsourcing saw a boom in increasing number of corporates visit
the campuses in the last few years.However with the recession and the downturn refusing to take an upturn in USA and the west, the drying up of the campus programmes was the natural result.
We are noticing that the few campus programmes, that are still there, are going to the colleges with clout amongst the employers. and unfortunately most of the campus programmes are going to the colleges located in the metros or the large cities. The colleges in the rural areas are being starved of the opportunities.
Does this mean, that, only institutions located in the large cities can supply quality candidates??
For an outsider or an employer the picture more or less appears like that. However it is not true.
I have had the privilege of conducting campus recruitment programmes in large number of colleges and some reputed University campuses in 2010.
My observations are open to dissent,disagreement & discussion by my learned friends on social networks.
Some of the reputed University Campuses in Andhra Pradesh that I visited, and the interactions I had the privilege to have with the learned professors, gave me a strange sense of fulfillment, the one that one gets after visiting shrine or a place of worship. The calm and controlled personalities with the knowledge flowing in torrents were a revelation to me. I wondered, how, how could so much knowledge and humility co-exist in an individual and so much serenity in an institution.With such being the quality of Faculty, the quality of the Pupil could be no different.We got the quality that we wanted..
There were no surprises.
However there were surprises when we visited some of the Institutions located in the districts of Andhra Pradesh.(in all the three regions). Here of course our expectations were low in terms of quality and the quantity.
However here we were in for a shock. A pleasant one of course.
The quality of education and experience of the faculty were comparatively less than that of elite institutions.However the sense of responsibility,ownership for delivery, and sense of belonging for the institution were great. The students there performed much better than the so called famous and much hyped institutions. Of course, they did not know much about the social media,Linkedin,Facebook, or Twitter as did their colleagues in the cities.Their English communication was comparatively poor, but the subject knowledge, they were very thorough in both written and oral.
What does this prove?
It proves that for years on, these brilliant students have been unjustifiably denied the opportunity, the opportunity they deserved no less.At the same time the corporates have been deprived of the quality inputs.
That is the reason, I say, that we turn the process around and devise a way where we could take the campuses to the corporates.
I suggest a neutral procedure for grading of the colleges in according to the student quality.The student quality assessment should be on the basis of a procedure which could be similar to process of ISO certification. University exam results, distinctions do not portray a correct image of the student quality. this is evident from the feedback received from the corporates. It is better to not discuss AICTE or its methods of recognition. The evaluation of the colleges should be done on the basis of certain fixed parameters, with sufficient leverage in accordance with geographic, demographic, and economic conditions of the people there, and results should be assessed against the available resources. On this basis the institutions should be ranked and ranking released and made public. This ranking data should be updated every academic year. This will allow the corporates to make a proper assessment of the quality of the institutions, and also enable the process of the best students getting jobs and corporates getting the best talents.
This is just a loud thinking, based on my limited experience,My colleagues can however suggest better alternatives. Once some neutral foolproof system is in place.Both the institutions and the corporates will be happy to invest money to run it.
Just as RBI has CIBIL to evaluate the quality of a borrower, and just as this system is being supported by the Banks and Financial institutions,We can have on for the educational institutions.
This would be almost virtually taking the "Campuses to the Corporates."
I would be happy to have the feedback from my learned friends.
Best Wishes,
Shyam
The process of transforming the Campus Colts to Corporate throughbred should start in all earnest. The Instituitions should act as breeding ground and provide scaffolding to facilitate the process.
the campuses in the last few years.However with the recession and the downturn refusing to take an upturn in USA and the west, the drying up of the campus programmes was the natural result.
We are noticing that the few campus programmes, that are still there, are going to the colleges with clout amongst the employers. and unfortunately most of the campus programmes are going to the colleges located in the metros or the large cities. The colleges in the rural areas are being starved of the opportunities.
Does this mean, that, only institutions located in the large cities can supply quality candidates??
For an outsider or an employer the picture more or less appears like that. However it is not true.
I have had the privilege of conducting campus recruitment programmes in large number of colleges and some reputed University campuses in 2010.
My observations are open to dissent,disagreement & discussion by my learned friends on social networks.
Some of the reputed University Campuses in Andhra Pradesh that I visited, and the interactions I had the privilege to have with the learned professors, gave me a strange sense of fulfillment, the one that one gets after visiting shrine or a place of worship. The calm and controlled personalities with the knowledge flowing in torrents were a revelation to me. I wondered, how, how could so much knowledge and humility co-exist in an individual and so much serenity in an institution.With such being the quality of Faculty, the quality of the Pupil could be no different.We got the quality that we wanted..
There were no surprises.
However there were surprises when we visited some of the Institutions located in the districts of Andhra Pradesh.(in all the three regions). Here of course our expectations were low in terms of quality and the quantity.
However here we were in for a shock. A pleasant one of course.
The quality of education and experience of the faculty were comparatively less than that of elite institutions.However the sense of responsibility,ownership for delivery, and sense of belonging for the institution were great. The students there performed much better than the so called famous and much hyped institutions. Of course, they did not know much about the social media,Linkedin,Facebook, or Twitter as did their colleagues in the cities.Their English communication was comparatively poor, but the subject knowledge, they were very thorough in both written and oral.
What does this prove?
It proves that for years on, these brilliant students have been unjustifiably denied the opportunity, the opportunity they deserved no less.At the same time the corporates have been deprived of the quality inputs.
That is the reason, I say, that we turn the process around and devise a way where we could take the campuses to the corporates.
I suggest a neutral procedure for grading of the colleges in according to the student quality.The student quality assessment should be on the basis of a procedure which could be similar to process of ISO certification. University exam results, distinctions do not portray a correct image of the student quality. this is evident from the feedback received from the corporates. It is better to not discuss AICTE or its methods of recognition. The evaluation of the colleges should be done on the basis of certain fixed parameters, with sufficient leverage in accordance with geographic, demographic, and economic conditions of the people there, and results should be assessed against the available resources. On this basis the institutions should be ranked and ranking released and made public. This ranking data should be updated every academic year. This will allow the corporates to make a proper assessment of the quality of the institutions, and also enable the process of the best students getting jobs and corporates getting the best talents.
This is just a loud thinking, based on my limited experience,My colleagues can however suggest better alternatives. Once some neutral foolproof system is in place.Both the institutions and the corporates will be happy to invest money to run it.
Just as RBI has CIBIL to evaluate the quality of a borrower, and just as this system is being supported by the Banks and Financial institutions,We can have on for the educational institutions.
This would be almost virtually taking the "Campuses to the Corporates."
I would be happy to have the feedback from my learned friends.
Best Wishes,
Shyam
Hi Shyam
ReplyDeleteYour observations are absolutely correct. Having been in the IT industry for the past 30+ years(not retired yet) and 2 years back took up training fresher induction batches in corporates.
I have had the opportunity to interact and interview candidates from rural candidates. Like you said they are strong in technical knowledge, but wanting in good communication, especially in English.
Our company has initiated a programme named "Arkseed" where we concentrate on rural colleges for making final year candidates employable. We train them on soft-skills (effective communication, public speaking, email/ phone etiquettes, etc).
I feel that if companies like us concentrate on colleges in rural areas the boys and girls can be made employable even by McKinsey, Boston, and others.