MCCI organised a seminar on ‘Career After Plus 2’ today at Chamber Hall, with erudite speakers comprising , Dr Suranjan Das, Vice Chancellor, Calcutta University; Dr Parijat De, Director, Department of Technical Education and Training, Government of West Bengal;Shri Pradip Chopra, Chairman, iLEAD and Prof. B.B.Paira, Advisor –Higher Education, Heritage Institute of Technology and The Heritage School.
’Students are always subject to certain societal pressures’ as the guiding force’, but there has to be a social consciousness raising exercise which will allow students a freedom to choose from various options in life and we need to get rid of the cycle of ‘Parental Pressure’ sourced from ‘Social and Family Pressures’– proclaimed the Vice Chancellor! The age old practice of ‘Family profession’ predetermining the students’ profession was criticized by the Vice Chancellor. ‘West Bengal has the highest number of first generation rural students in India’ –boasted Dr Das. However, he highlighted the ‘socio economic’ constraints which impede the pursuance of the desired career choice of most of the aspiring rural students. ‘With microscopic minority of Indian populace using internet, India should not be compared and equated with the West while introducing advanced policies in order to make it ‘realistic and implementable’ upto the grass root level’- was the statement of Dr Das!
‘Ensuring equality of Opportunities to all pupils across the mass’, ‘Enabling students to make the right career choice by commencing student assessment through class room and post school tasks’; ‘Making conscious attempt to interlink all academic and non academic disciplines to alleviate convolutions’, ‘Emulating the global practice of converging social science with pure science’, ‘Upholding National Heritage while welcoming Global Cultural Interaction’ and finally ‘Considering education as our social obligation’ – were the key pointers of Dr Das to the audience.
‘The spirit of entrepreneurship’ was upheld by Dr De who encouraged proper planning and development of ‘appropriate skills and personality traits from the initial stage of the students’. ‘Students should be equipped and freed to chase and materialize their dreams’ was the message of Shri Chopra who advocated prioritizing ‘soft skills ‘ in the institutions. ‘Aptitude’,’Capability’ and ‘Affordability’ were the three founding pillars to chart out a focused career-added Prof. Paira.
Shri Deepak Jalan, President, MCCI narrated a 4 tier career planning starting from ‘student self-assessment by honing inner skills,’ ‘exploring and generating career options,’ ‘gaining knowledge by engaging in constant dialogues with teachers and career counselors’ and finally making ‘ a stable and well informed’ career decision’ is the key to a successful and satisfying career!