Building a common portal for all stakeholders will see better engagement and enthused participation
Telangana has taken two significant steps to improve campus placements in the State. The first is the creation of Campus Placement Umbrella (CPU), which began last September, bringing all constituent and affiliated engineering colleges to JNTU under it. It recommends necessary skill sets for improving student employability and advises faculty. The CPU encourages student participation by engaging in various academic activities.
The second step was conducting a virtual conference in May this year with participation of UNYCC, TASK, TSIC along with the representation from the corporate community. The conference introduced students from all the 33 districts of Telangana to skill sets and work culture necessary for improve workforce demand.
The stakeholders in campus placement thus are CPU constituent academic institutions; Telangana student community representing 33 districts of the State; TASK; TSIC; IT & industry representatives and the corporate community. The following premises are important considerations before initiating steps to improve the campus placement scenario in TS:
• Components in New Education Policy
• Building long term careers for aspirants
• Skill set mapping matching industry demand in next five years
• Encouraging innovation push
• Geopolitical and geoeconomic influence on domestic and global employment scenario
Each stakeholder has an important role in creating continuous progress with respect to the student employability ratio.
Irrespective of the constituent college academic rating, the CPU needs to recommend skill sets suitable for campus placements. In a few cases, constituent colleges may not be in a position to train students on a specific recommended skill set. Lack of trained faculty and student readiness to learn new skills may be some of the reasons.
Inclusion of NEP components of interdisciplinary approach is necessary for the inputs given to constituent colleges while addressing the above concerns. Skill set recommendations mapping to the TS industry scenario is one of the suitable steps in improving the campus placement process.
The student community is one of the primary stakeholders driving TS’ growth engine. Often, this talent pool is the most neglected stakeholder whose concerns are not addressed with effective timelines by remaining stakeholders.
Student talent pool and corporates are two stakeholders interdependent for purposeful survival. In the incidence of any crisis, corporates have the option of relocation while the student talent pool stands losing employment options. Here, it is imperative for this stakeholder to explore various learning options and equip self with advanced and expert level competencies to realise career and individual growth objectives.
Self-learning and awareness of the latest developments in the desired area of career choices are the key points to a successful career roadmap. Right information motivates effective knowledge transfer among peer groups. Hence, forming a domain-specific community network aiming at career growth prospects positively impacts the campus placement scenario. It stands good for the student talent pool to receive learning experiences from the rest of the stakeholders in a more transparent and responsible way.
The role of TASK (Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge) in training student talent pool in domain-specific technologies with an interdisciplinary approach and initiating faculty development programmes will help in improving the campus placement ratio. Preparation of skill-grid and mapping to current and future industry talent demand over the next five years will help build long-term careers for the student community.
Learning solutions need to address the concerns of various student groups at different levels of learning abilities. Design and implementation of training programmes may aim at creating an insulated platform for the above focus groups until the training and evaluations are completed. Student community, academic institutions and TASK form a successful team in showcasing competent talent pool to corporate community in campus placement process.
This stakeholder gently holds great innovation stories in its hands. Innovation needs patient nurturing of talent and unwavering perseverance in goal pursuance. TSIC (Telangana State Innovation Cell) is more effective when it is engaged in mentoring and handholding the student talent pool. Establishing incubation centres and engagement with growth accelerators demand strategic collaborations with academic and corporate stakeholders.
Understanding current and future TS economic growth indicators gives TSIC the much-needed push for dynamic role play in building successful innovation stories. Academic institutions in collaboration with industry are ideal stakeholders to establish incubation centres. Technologies like AI, ML and Data Sciences must find application and research platforms in these centres. Innovations in these fields bring transitional changes in both process and design. They have a huge ambit for applications encompassing socially relevant implications. Therefore, innovations based on these technologies give a greater push for rural innovation.
Agriculture and allied industries, healthcare, banking & finance, alternate energy solutions, education, textiles & art, services & products, sustainable solutions and governance are a few examples where these technologies find a place in rural innovation growth potential.
Policy framing on employment by IT & Industry representation needs understanding, analysis and deliberations on geopolitical and geoeconomic influences on domestic and global employment scenario. Employment policy encouraging at least 35% of total employment absorption in domestic recruitment with relevant domain expertise needs complete back-up and encouragement from the government. It is possible when innovation and entrepreneurship are encouraged in those areas where local communities are end-users and consumers.
Identifying relevant industry and service sectors to push domestic recruitments and implementing relevant skill-grid in training student talent pool will enable continuous employment generation despite global fluctuations in talent acquisition.
There has been much discussion on the role of corporates as a stakeholder in student recruitment policy. Important aspects of expected talent requirements are mapped by corporates and accordingly campus placement process is carried.
However, “diversity” in aspect of equal play pertaining to rural and urban ratio, gender ratio, recruitment to engagement ratio, elite to general technology ratio, service processes to innovation ratio needs attention. The State corporate employment policy has to examine the diversity aspect of corporate recruitment policy. Encouraging diversity in talent recruitment positively impacts community development.
Building a robust common portal for all stakeholder participation boosts stakeholder engagement and enthused participation. Creation of specific fields in the portal for training, incubation, mentoring and peer communication on this common platform will make the campus placement process more dynamic and successful.
(The author is Consultant, Strategy, Learning & Development and Organisational Development, SM Consulting Services, Bengaluru)
Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today on Telegram everyday. Click the link to subscribe.
Click to follow Telangana Today Facebook page and Twitter .