Minister Irani Flags Concern over Quality of India’s Science and Technical Teachers

New Delhi, India, 5 November 2014 – India’s education system came under the spotlight at the opening day  of the India Economic Summit, as panellists grappled with solutions to make the country’s youth more employable.

“We are extremely concerned about the quality of teachers in the scientific community, in the technical community,” said Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister of Human Resource Development of India. Irani announced that the government is establishing new academies for science and technical educators and will provide digital training solutions attached to teachers’ career plans, “so that they know they will be rewarded for training on the job.”

Irani announced an initiative to help students re-enter the educational system after dropping out to earn a living. “One of the biggest challenges is that we do not have a credit transfer system within our country that enables the migration of labour,” said Irani. On 11 November 2014, Education Day, the government will roll out for the first time a “credit equivalence framework from class nine onwards up to postgraduate level,” said Irani. From January 2015, the system will reach up to PhD level, so that those who enter the workforce can get back into the education system when they wish. This will be “one of the game-changers” predicted the minister.

Irani also announced a slew of initiatives planned for next year, including the “Shala Darpan” project – a smart app to enable parents to receive updates on their children’s school attendance, assignments and achievements via their mobile phones.

Uday S. Kotak, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, India, called for a change in mindset among Indians to renew their respect for teachers. He criticized the previous government for focusing on the hardware of school buildings at the expense of developing quality teaching and software. Minister Irani agreed that “this need to respect our teachers … is one of our critical challenges currently.”

Irani highlighted an initiative on 5 September 2014, Teachers Day, in which the government reached out to 90.5 million students across the country “to generate interest in today’s youth so that they can be teachers tomorrow.”

Shobhana Bhartia, Chairperson and Editorial Director, HT Media, India, a Co-Chair of the India Economic Summit, said that “most institutes of higher education are not industry focused … it’s more theoretical learning than practical learning.” To address the skills mismatch, HT Media, in partnership with Apollo Global, has launched the Bridge School of Management to link education more closely to industry needs through a hybrid model of online learning and face-to-face teaching.

Arundhuti Gupta, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mentor Together, India, emphasized the importance of mentoring young people from adolescence onwards in career opportunities and challenging stereotypes of job expectations skewed by gender or family.

Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, USA, advised that “salaries for teachers and professors have to be more competitive” if India wants to keep its talent from migrating abroad. He also called on India’s premier institutions to engage in research as well as teaching.

Following almost three decades of collaboration, the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are hosting the India Economic Summit in New Delhi from 4 to 6 November 2014. Over 700 participants have convened under the theme, Redefining Public-Private Cooperation for a New Beginning.

The Co-Chairs of this year’s summit are: Shobhana Bhartia, Chairperson and Editorial Director, HT Media, India; James Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Airways, United Arab Emirates; Yorihiko Kojima, Chairman of the Board, Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan; Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, India; and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, Documentary Filmmaker, SOC Films, Pakistan.