At the 34th Annual Management Education Convention on ‘Management Education: Harnessing the New Paradigm’, organised by Association of Indian Management Schools at PSG ITech Convention Center on Thursday, the focus was on the National Education Policy (NEP), its merits and demerits.

In the opening remarks, citing the Chairman of NEP Draft Committee K Kasturirangan’s report, founder President of AIMS and Chairman of Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship J Philip, said, “Management education is totally ignored in the report. Any progressive country looks at management and technology education as the two main pillars of the country’s future. In our case, the only mention in the full book (report), is a course that technical education improves management education too.”

“The NEP wants the very nature of universities to change. There is the compulsion (under NEP) to convert every institution into a multidisciplinary university. The Post Graduate Diploma in Management became a considerable force in the country because they were sharply focussed on one area,” he said at the event.

‘Innovative society’

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Chairman TG Sitharam said, “Vocational courses and regular college education — which are on a par with each other under the policy — upskilling and reskilling and life-long learning are the central pillars of employability and employment of workers for sustainable enterprise development.”

He said that through the NEP, the Centre is trying to popularise the mother tongue, which will go a long way in creating an innovative society.

AICTE, with Indira Gandhi National Open University, plans management education in regional languages, and is trying to write textbooks in 13 different languages and looking into examination pattern reforms. 

Many colleges are not following the mandatory internship clause in the policy, and the AICTE’s internship portal has 2.5 crore registered verified users. Nearly 77,000 companies were listed.

He said, “These 25 years before reaching the 100th year of Independence aka ‘Amrit Kaal’, signifies the perfect time to start a new venture.”

“There are many issues in theNEP, particularly for the management programme — upgrading standalone institutions — because NEP talks about agglomeration, and multi disciplinary, research and innovation has become a practice now-a-days.”

Association of Indian Management Schools President R Nandagopal and AIMS convenor and PSG Institute of Management Director V Srividya spoke on the role and importance of management in developing the nation’s economy at the event.

Chandrayaan-III

Citing news reports, he mentioned that the stocks of four companies — Centum Electronics, MTAR Tech, Midhani and Paras Defence — involved in the Chandrayaan-III mission added nearly ₹2,000 crore in market cap this week alone. “This means, the ₹615 crore have already come back... This is going to create a lot of jobs. This spurs the economic growth of the nation,” he told the students.

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