Make students industry-ready: CM Jagan Mohan Reddy

VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy underlined the need for integrating certified job-oriented online vertical courses like risk analysis, risk management, banking and real estate administration with the  mainstream curriculum to improve the skills of degree students and enable them choose self-employed professions.

At a review meeting on higher education on Thursday, he directed officials to acquaint themselves with various courses being offered to students in well-known educational institutions abroad and implement the same curriculum in the colleges in the State. Such curriculum should be integrated with the syllabus by June next, he suggested, adding that the officials should also have a tie-up with national institutions like the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to develop the students as self-employed professionals in various sectors.   

He suggested that steps be taken to fill up vacant posts in the department by clearing legal hurdles by June in view of the green signal given by the government. The officials should be more active to meet the pace of reforms being introduced in the department.

“Every higher educational institution should strive to achieve the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation in the next three years by improving standards in teaching and others. The recognition of institutions, which failed to achieve NAAC accreditation should be cancelled,” he stressed.
Underlining the need for a uniform policy to accord recognition to various colleges, he said the Skill University should take the responsibility of designing the curriculum in tandem with the IT Department to meet the operational demands of various industries in every district.  Students should become proficient in courses such as coding, cloud computing and software development.

As the government is establishing skill development centres in all the 175 Assembly constituencies, students should be trained to meet the scarcity of experts in the fields of solar panel making, repairing of solar motors and maintenance of solar parks and the same courses should be introduced by June next, the CM asserted.  

Besides strengthening the Academic Staff Colleges in Visakhapatnam and Tirupati to improve the standards of teaching staff, another such college should be established in the central Andhra region. The officials should also closely monitor the functioning of private BEd colleges in the State to safeguard the interests of students, he said.

Jagan urged the officials to strive to achieve sustainable goals in the education sector as the government is implementing fee reimbursement scheme at the higher level and Amma Vodi at the lower level to reduce the dropout rate in the State. They should explore the possibility of establishing a recruitment board to fill up vacancies in universities, while filling up vacant posts in IIITs at the earliest, he suggested. Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana, Chief Secretary KS Jawahar Reddy, Advisor (Education) A Sambasiva Reddy and other officials attended the meeting.