The 11th edition of CII Education Summit, organised in partnership with the All India Council for Technical Education and the Department of Science & Technology got off to a flying start on Thursday 21 October on digital platform. The two-day summit was inaugurated by Dr Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Minister of State for Education, Government of India.
Dr Singh lauded the various education initiatives of CII and congratulated CII officials for taking timely steps in the direction of capacity building of teachers on using technology tools, strengthening the foundational skills of children through a Catch-up Campaign and bridging the gap between industry and academia.
The Inaugural session saw two big announcements – release of 10th CII-Deloitte ASHE 2021 report and a CII partnership with Microsoft for academic leaders. The ASHE report highlights the annual status of higher education in states and UTs in India. Announcing the release of this year’s edition, the Chairman of CII Education Council Dr BVR Mohan Reddy, who is also the Chairman of BoG of IIT Hyderabad & Roorkee and Executive Chairman of Cyient, said, “As always, this year’s ASHE report will be able to provide leaders, decision makers, and strategists in the field of higher education the necessary information and help them in their decision making at both the Centre and State levels.”
He highlighted the key work that CII Education Council has been doing over the years and said that “CII has created successful projects to increase industry-academia linkages and enhance the quality of education”.
Ms Radhika Bharat Ram, Co-Chair, CII Education Council & Joint Vice Chairperson, The Shri Ram Schools said that the CII Catch-Up Campaign will make it easier for children to get back to schooling, an experience that they were missing out on.
Mr Navtez Bal, Executive Director- Public Sector and Education, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd expressed that “technology has been an ally, and these are trends that we have seen accelerating from a technology perspective; adoption of data and AI in the cloud, push on digital skills and certification, emergence of ed-tech platforms, trust in technology.”
On the CII-Microsoft partnership for Academic Leadership Programme on Leveraging Technology Tools, Dr Singh said, “This is a very important area and needs attention in light of the rapid technology changes.”
On the CII-SERB Prime Minister’s Fellowship for Doctoral Research where PhD students get double sponsorship with Government and industry support for doing research in topics that are industry relevant, the Honb’le Minister of State said “this initiative has the potential to transform the research and innovation landscape in the country and I encourage industry and scholars to participate in the Fellowship in large numbers.”
He also said that AICTE-CII Survey of Industry-linked Technical Institutions, which was conceptualised by CII, has had a far-reaching impact on creating awareness regarding importance of forging industry ties and has encouraged academic institutes to work more closely with industry.
“CII has always worked very closely with the Ministry of Education and the education bodies of the Government. CII provided many good policy inputs for the NEP and continues to give important policy recommendations. I am excited to work with CII in the near future on the implementation of NEP as well as other initiatives in education to bring industry & academia closer”, said Dr Singh.
CII’s two-day 11th Education Summit will celebrate the rigour and resilience shown by the education fraternity in these trying times and will deliberate a path towards full recovery at an earliest possible time. The Summit will especially focus on the National Education Policy and its implementation going forward.
22 October 2021