Educational institutions need to make students industry-ready: Nirmala Sitharaman

CHENNAI: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said India needs to understand what the industry requires and educational institutions need to produce students capable of getting into industry to serve the country's development goals.

Sitharaman at an event here said India's higher education was no less when compared to global universities and people who have studied in Indian universities were the second largest contingent when it comes to managing the best of companies around the world.

Referring to the representation of Saint-Gobain India in the board of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, she said if industries have come to be on the board of research institutes, they know the industry particularly those futuristic ones, especially those sun-rise areas so that India becomes the land for manufacturing some of those critical things for which today we are completely dependent on other countries and when there is supply chain disruption our manufacturing suffers.

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"What we need to do now is to make sure we understand what the industry needs and be able to manufacture for ourselves and for the world and that is why industry leaders sitting on the boards of such wonderful educational institutions, which draw talent, which bring in best of skills and ability and which have rigorous learning experiences are very important," she said at the 10th convocation of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, near here.

"We need to produce students who are capable of getting into industry and getting into industry which serve India's development goals. I think this synergy is now achieved by most of the institutions because the government speaks to them and they give inputs to the government and as a result you (students) are able to get institutions which are absolutely important," she said.