Education 2018

2018 will be the year of skill development, innovation-based technologies, talent analytics, automation, advanced IT and smart courses, says

Dr TP Sethumadhavan

The New Year will bring in growth in employee recruitment and 10-15 per cent increase in salary hike. Services sector will create 70 per cent employment opportunities in the country. Artificial intelligence, Internet of things, analytics, social, mobile, cloud services, machine learning, E-commerce, food processing, health services, ayurveda, yoga, accounting, banking, financial and insurance services will show robust growth in the country. The GST and demonetisation will create opportunities in many fields like accounting, logistics, supply chain management, retail management, e commerce, digital marketing, e-banking and mobile banking in the country. Net employment outlook is two percentage points higher than the previous quarter. In 2018, employees will be rated based on talent analytics or people analytics with the use of big data.

Retail sector

Retail sector in Tier2 and 3 cities in India will witness higher investment than metro cities. Lack of space, increase in rentals and high land price affect retail sector in metro city malls. India will continue to emerge as the third largest start-up ecosystem in the world. There will be substantial growth in entrepreneurship, start-ups and fin-techs in the country. Students will try to become employers after establishing start-ups in ICT, agri allied, food processing, education and other services sectors.

New start-ups will emerge in agriculture, fintech, logistics, supply chain management, analytics, allied agri sectors, e-health, e-commerce and other services sectors in the country. At a time when prospects for ready to eat and ready to cook products are emerging across the world, food processing sector will exhibit annual growth rate of 25 percent in the country. Food outsourcing will improve and food market will emerge as 60 per cent of retail market in the coming year.

Transformations

Lot of transformations are taking place in the career sector. Nature and future of works are changing. International labour organisation realised these facts and is working for sustainable strategies in this system. Talent and technology tuned jobs are emerging. Automation started replacing the traditional sectors.

Recent FICCI, NASSCOM and EY reports suggest that by 2022 job scenario will undergo total transformation. Due to globalisation, digitalisation, change in demographics and advancement of technologies, by 2022 nine per cent work force would be in new jobs which do not exist today. 37 per cent would be in jobs which will radically change the skill sets. Twentyone per cent of workforce will face existential threat. Around 20-25 per cent jobs will be in organised sector will reach 10 per cent from the current eight per cent level. Thus, organised workforce will be around 46-48 million by 2022.

Manufacturing & Skill development

During 2017, Make in India, Digital India and Skill India can’t create envisaged employment opportunities in Manufacturing, Information and Communication technology and skill development in the country. Realising the shortfall, Government of India will facilitate to create more employment opportunities during 2018 as part of pre-election home work. Skill development will be the area of focus during the coming year. There is a huge skill gap between available and required skills in the country.

Manufacturing sector, which is providing only 12 per cent employment opportunities, can create up to 20 per cent employment opportunities in 2018.  Construction and infrastructure sectors will create more employment opportunities which can facilitate Architecture, Civil, Mechanical, electrical and electronics, electronics and Communication, Computer, IT and Biomedical engineering in the coming years. Core engineering graduates will be benefited when compared to specialised cadres. Graduate programme will emerge as benchmark qualification and students require post graduation, post diploma or skill development programmes as value added courses to succeed in the career market.

Globally skill development will emerge as the cardinal for recruitment. Moreover, potential employers may give due weightage to soft skills of the prospective employees. Social, mobile analytics, cloud services, artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning, deep learning and automation will emerge as advanced IT services and create more employment opportunities. Future business is going to be social.

Internet of things (IoT) may acquire more security issues during 2018 and Cyber security and Ethical hacking courses will create more employment in the country. IoT will face cyber security issues in the coming year. Green technology will emerge as one of the potential sectors in India giving due initiatives to improve quality of air we breathe and clean, affordable and reliable sources of energy.

Hospitality, Art & Design

Hospitality, Tourism, Retail, Supply chain, logistics and agri business management sectors will exhibit increased growth rate. There will be more takers for hospitality management, hotel management, airline and airport management and transport management courses. Art and design will be the area which can create lot of employment opportunities globally. Number of students aspiring for foot wear design, fashion technology and Indian Institute of Technologies will increase during the year 2018.

Campus recruitment will increase over 40 per cent during the year 2018. There will be emergence of smart cities which will create more employment opportunities for smart courses. Smart cities envisage for sustainable, high quality of life in terms of infrastructure, mobility, connectivity, technology, environment, availability of resources and overall living conditions and experience. It is an urban renewal and retrofitting programme to develop 100 smart cities in India which will focus on urban infrastructure, planning, transportation and shared services.

Global move to reduce the use of fossil fuels like petrol and diesel will pave way for electric, solar or hybrid vehicles which in turn facilitate spectacular growth in automobile design and engineering. Hybrid and Integrated courses like mechatronics, biomedical sciences, bio informatics, developmental sciences, climatology, humanities and social sciences, English etc will acquire more importance. There will be increase in numbers of students aspiring for integrated post graduate courses and inter disciplinary research in the country.

STEAM courses

There will be great prospects for Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Mathematics (STEAM) and health related courses. Demand for STEAM students from India will increase in US. Physical and Biological sciences will acquire momentum as a sequel to research opportunities existing in developed countries. Chartered Accountant, ICWAI, chartered institute of Management accountant programme, Chartered management accountant, CIMA global, asset management, risk assessment, financial analyst, actuarial science, project management and ACCA programme will attract more students.

Combined accounting course with GST compliant courses will evolve which can create more employment opportunities. Prospects for commerce, Business studies and management programmes will increase. International business and trade related courses; intellectual property rights and patent law will attain more importance at post graduate and doctoral level studies.

Journalism courses under new media and research will create more employment opportunities. Courses related to performing arts, dance, music, film production, visual media, visual communication, business economics, business communication, animation and mobile gaming will create more job opportunities. Genomics, Connectomics, embedded systems, drug resistance, Internet of things, etc will be the focus of research.

Rural internet users will increase by 22 per cent per year whereas urban internet users by 7 per cent per year reaching 263 million in the country. One -third youth in the world are not online which will be around 346 million. Skills to meet corporate challenges will increase.

Management education will become an added edge to every academic discipline. E-commerce, technology, healthcare management, retailing, corporate communication, digital management and business analytics will emerge as the potential sectors in the year to come. Right management programme with competent faculty will provide right education, industry academia interface, field work and better employment prospects.

Health & Interdisciplinary research

Interdisciplinary research will be more focussed on sustainable development, multi-drug resistance, tuberculosis, public health, developmental studies, climatology, food safety etc.  New regulations will create more opportunities for studies in food safety, food security, goods and services tax, value addition, etc in the country.

As part of AYUSH, Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Sidha and Homeopathy courses will attract more number of students. Ayurveda will globally emerge as one of the most wanted courses in the years to come.

Agri & Allied courses

Agribusiness, veterinary science, fisheries technology, dairy technology, food technology, poultry product technology, post harvest technology, high value agriculture, environmental science, logistics, courses related to export import policies, courses related to packaging, nanoscience, nano technology, high value agriculture, organic farming will be the focus areas during 2018. Students aspiring for MBBS and BTech in IIT and NIT programmes will increase but steady decline in student numbers will continue among Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) aspiring students.

Courses like English, foreign languages, public administration, media studies, paramedical courses like physiotherapy, optometry, nursing, pharmacy and laboratory techniques will attract more students. Humanities, social sciences, economics, developmental science, political science, philosophy and history will be some of the most wanted courses for students aspiring to write civil services examination.

Entrance exams

Students aspiring for National eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical courses, Joint Engineering Entrance Exam (Main), Birla Institute of Technology and Science-BITSAT National Institute of Fashion Technology, National Institute of Design, English and Foreign language University courses, Humanities and Social Sciences Courses of IIT, Chennai, National Council for Hotel Management’s Hospitality and Hotel administration programme, CLAT for admission to National law Universities,  State Medical, Agricultural and Engineering entrance test will gradually increase during the  year 2018. National Testing Centre for all the professional courses entrance test will emerge during 2018. Moreover, there will be unified entrance examination for Engineering at National level similar to NEET.

At the post graduate level examinations like CAT, GATE, , ICAR JRF, CSIR SRF, Civil services examination, NIFT PG examination, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS and GMAT will attract students aspiring for education in India and Abroad respectively. United States, Canada, UK, China, Japan, Australia, Singapore, European Union will attain the major destinations for Indian students to study abroad. Students aspiring for under graduate programme abroad will increase and they will prepare for SAT and English proficiency examinations.  

Study abroad programmes

2018 will be a promising year across the world. Britain will anxiously wait to see whether its exit from European Union is to happen smoothly or traumatically. World economy and Indian economy will move at a faster pace. November 2018 will witness election to House of Representatives in United States which will affect Trump reforms if Democrats win the election as a sequel to Alabama results. In Cuba President Raul Castro will retire and Emperor Akihito’s era will be terminated in Japan. Brazil and Mexico will move for Presidential elections. Techlash, progressivism and changing attributes to China will be the trends during 2018.

Across the World politicians will turn on technology giants with fines, regulations and tougher interpretation of rules. Lot of basic research will take place in biological science. It will provide the fuel for new disease treatments, improvements in agriculture and biotechnologies. Healthcare spending will increase by 4.5 percent globally.  Employers in Australia, Japan, Norway, Poland, Romania and the US reported their strongest hiring plans in the coming years.

UK’s new higher education and skills bill will favour international students. Due to increasing cost of education and absence of post study work (PSW) visa, Indian students are compelled to pursue higher education from countries other than the UK. Large number of science, technology, engineering and Mathematics students are eagerly waiting for revoke of PSW visa in order to get higher education from UK since UK excels in cutting edge technology and world class institutions globally. Technology, Entrepreneurship, start-ups and skill development are some of the areas where India is exhibiting spectacular growth. There are chances of implementing one-year post study work visa in UK. Brexit reforms will favour Indian students since more career opportunities will be available after exit of Britain from EU.

United States, Canada, Australia and Singapore will also emerge as the potential destinations for Indian students. United States recently increased the pay structure of employees working under H1B visa. This will affect Indian IT companies working in United States. Some of the EU countries like Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, France, Germany and Ireland started implementing liberal post study work visa up to three years. As per the recent UK regulations, the minimum salary for a Tier II migrant should be 20800 pounds. This will also affect Indian IT companies since 90 per cent of IT professionals are working in UK under skilled worker category.

The year will see a steady increase in numbers of students aspiring for education in US, Canada, UK, Australia, Singapore, China and European countries like Germany, France, New Zealand, Netherlands and Georgia. More number of students will try for medical education in China, Philippines, Georgia and Russia. Students interested to pursue pre medical courses in US, Australia, New Zealand, UK and Canada may increase. They require SAT and TOEFL/IELTS scores for admission. More number of Indian students will be interested to pursue graduate programmes from US, Canada, UK, Australia and Singapore when compared to under graduate programmes. Students aspiring for Canada immigration from India will increase this year.

The writer is a leading career consultant  & founder of Edu start up www.nextedu.in