leader speak
Gateway to Growth India’s transition to a knowledge-based economy requires a new generation of skilled people
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ndia’s transition to a knowledge economy requires a new generation of educated and skilled people. The competitive edge will be determined by the people’s ability to effectively create, share, and use knowledge. India requires a knowledge economy to develop workers - knowledge workers and knowledge technologists - who are flexible, analytical and are the driving force for innovation and growth. Two greatest concerns of employers today are finding good workers and training them. The difference between the skills needed on the job and those possessed by applicants, sometimes called the skills-gap, is of real concern to human resource managers and business owners who might be looking forward to hire
competent employees. While employers would prefer to hire people who are trained and ready to go to work, they are usually willing to provide the specialised, job-specific training necessary for those lacking such skills. India can learn a lot with the German model, which relies on the skills of their people. As a federal enterprise, our organisation supports the German government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. We are also engaged in international education work around the globe. We offer demanddriven, tailor-made and effective services for sustainable development. To ensure the participation of all stakeholders, we apply a holistic approach based on
Dr Srikant Bansal Director-Technical GIZ International Service
the values and principles upheld in German society.
Bringing Seamless Efficiency to Education Digital education is not only about hardware-software, teachers too have an important role to play
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ven when it is not being used for providing education directly, technology has a big role to play. Important stakeholders like teachers, principals, administrators, investors, content creators, and others depend on technology to bring efficiency into their operations. New digital technology makes it possible for them to access and disseminate information in seamless and easy manner. They need to remain connected 24/7 for sharing their views and their best practises with everyone in the chain. Ways have to be developed for us to manage the content that gets presented before the students through interactive boards and other digital avenues. There are quite a few challenges that
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schools have to face in managing their digital content. One of these challenges is infrastructure related. As far as infrastructure is concerned, there has to be an extensive overhauling of the systems. The heating and cooling systems have to be there. Many low income homes do not have access to high speed internet. Students from such families are unable to use their laptops at home for accessing online course material. Training of teachers is also an issue. Teachers have to learn about the best ways of using technology in classrooms. They must be able to handle minor software error or hardware error while they are in their classrooms. We can also have a system where maintenance facilities are avail-
Vishal Vasu Dev Information Technology Pvt. Ltd able 24/7, so that minimum time is lost inside the classroom due to any technical glitches.