Good GDP growth not always ensures benefits to common man

KOLKATA: Economic development with good GDP growth does not ensure the benefits will always trickle down to the common man and despite India having a huge population as its advantage, skill development has a long way to go. Education is the only tool to address this, said Mr SC Tewari, West Bengal���s principal secretary (education), on Friday.

He spoke about the need to create a common body in order to address the collaborative issues between industry and academia, act as a beacon to similar such centers and finally share the results with all other educational institutes of India.

Mr Tewari was speaking at a two-day university-industry council symposium with the theme ���Industry-Academia Collaboration for Quality Human Resource and R&D towards Sustainable Economic & Social Development��� organised by CII and BESU.

Besides industry leaders and vice-chancellors, deans and professors from various universities, panelists from foreign universities in Israel, Singapore and Australia also attended this meet to share their industry-academia partnerships.
BESU vice-chancellor Ajay Kumar Ray stressed that it is time that academia comes out of strict compartmentalisation and integrates with industry for better overall management of both technological skills and financial innovations. CII principal advisor Y S Rajan spoke on the importance of universities and industries interacting to understand each other���s requirements and evolving together.

MD Tiwari, president, Association of Indian Universities and director, IIIT Allahabad and Amethi pointed out the government���s role in enhancing industry-academic interation while Jadavpur University vice-chancellor PN Ghosh spoke on the importance of encouraging innovation among students. NIT Agartala director PK Bose stressed on the need to develop state-of-the-art infrastructure and rank teaching equally with research.