Madhya Pradesh IT Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya while inaugurating the State Education Summit in Indore said tech -boosting the education sector was demand of the time
Indore: The Madhya Pradesh government was committed to give a technological boost to the education sector to help students, passing out from different institutions in the state, stand solidly in the competitive world, State’s Information Technology Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said here on Wednesday.
The IT Minister was speaking at the inaugural function of the day-long Madhya Pradesh State Education Summit, being organised by the Elets Technomedia. Earlier he lit the lamp and formally inaugurated the Summit.
He said the state was emerging as destination for education and hailed the organisers for choosing the Madhya Pradesh for its first Education Summit.The Summit is being convened with the objective of focusing and deliberating on regional concerns and challenges in diverse areas of education.
The state has been identified with a potential to fulfil the future requirements of the knowledge economy. The state’s large youth population can become the fountainhead for boosting the central government’s agenda of creating 200 million skilled workforces by the year 2020, the Minister added.
For this, various educational programmes have been undertaken. The state is witnessing significant growth in engineering, telecom networks and other industries. Yet the challenges and gaps in industry and academia persist.
However, achieving quality and universalisation of education remains a challenge for the state. To improving the quality and inclusion in higher education, we are adopting a multi-dimensional approach. We are starting a large number of colleges in rural areas to make higher education accessible to people in those areas. In the past one year we have opened 20-25 colleges and have about 15 more in the pipeline, he further added.
“The conference like State Education Summit act a platform for the knowledge exchange and the sharing of best practices and ideas to address the gaps and challenges of the state’s education sector,” the minister said.
The consortium brings together the thought leadership from across the country to focus on the development of the state. I welcome you all in the State Education Summit, Madhya Pradesh and hope that the summit will bring out deliberation for the persisting growth of the state.
Speaking on the occasion the Information Technology Department Secretary of the state Hariranjan Rao said ICT has become an integral part of the education system and new solutions were coming up to give make the education sector updated. He said virtual class rooms could play an important role in bridging the digital divide and make quality education accessible to students living in remote areas.
The Summit which has parallel sessions —on higher education and school education— is being attended by eminent personalities in the education sector, think-tanks, academicians, policy makers, educational institutions’ heads and students, and others, discussing the various issues, challenges and best practices in the education sector.
In the inaugural session a host of speakers including Lokesh Mehra, Director- Education Advocacy, Microsoft, Dr Veera Gupta, Former Secretary, CBSE & Associate Professor, National University for Education Planning & Administration (NUEPA), Dr Michael Harnar, Mosaic Network, US, Ritu Ghosh, Head-Education Initiatives, HP, Suresh Mhatre, Vice President, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS),Vikram Kant Upadhyay, President, Team India & Board Member at Indian Angel Network, and Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach, Country Director, TESS -India, Open University, UK expressed their views.
In the thematic session on Higher Education Track chaired by NASSCOM Vice President Rajiv Vaishnav on “Employable Skills and Proficiency Levels Amongst Youth: Best Practices and Next Practices”, a host of speakers including Dr Prashant Rajvaidya, President, Mosaic Network, Mukesh Sharma,CEO, Centre for Research & Industrial Staff Performance(CRISP), Lokesh Mehra, Director- Education Advocacy, Microsoft, Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT University and Dr Manoj Bhatia, Director, Sanghvi Institute of Management & Science expressed their views.
The parallel pre-lunch session on School Education track titled “Vocationalising Education nad Capacity Building of Teachers: Case Studies” was addressed by Dr RB Shivagunde, Joint Director, PSSCIVE, Bhopal Harvender Khalsa, Principal, Himalaya International School and Sunil Pandya,Administrator, Vidyasagar School & College.
The summit also discussed around six different topics in post- lunch session on both the tracks where a large number of domain experts participated. All those who have excelled in different areas of the education sector were given Siksha Ratna Award during the concluding ceremony of the event .
