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‘We are aiming to start looking at Delhi as an educational competition to cities globally,’ says Mr Aditya Berlia at the CII Education Summit
The theme of the CII Education Summit-2023 was ‘Transforming Education to Transform the World – Building a Strong Foundation for Youth’
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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on January 20, 2023, organised the CII Delhi Education Summit-2023 where Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation was the knowledge partner. The event was a step toward facilitating and strengthening linkages between industry and academia. The aim was to also highlight developments and suggest ways forward.
Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Shri Manish Sisodia graced the occasion as the chief guest. The event was also attended by some of the big names from the industry – Mr Aditya Berlia, Past Chairman Delhi State, Confederation of Indian Industry and Co-promoter Apeejay Stya and Svran Group and Co-Founder and Pro-Chancellor of Apeejay Stya University; Mr Madhav Singhania, Chairman, Delhi State, Confederation of Indian Industry, and Deputy Managing Director JK Cement and Professor Yogesh Singh, Vice-Chancellor, University of Delhi to name a few eminent people from academia.
Thanking CII for organising an education summit each year barring COVID-19 years, Shri Sisodia said that together they sit and brainstorm over the very useful report. “This report is a good critical analysis for policy-makers like myself. The good part of the report is that it draws references from countries like Germany, Korea, and Singapore, and how using innovative ideas these problems have been addressed. I am extremely grateful to Adityaji, Madhav Singhania, Rachnaji, and everyone who has helped in bringing out this report,” Mr Sisodia said.
“We overcame several problems in Delhi’s education system after 2015. I have had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people from academia, but there is a flip side as well. Nobody wants to take a wrong step and hence no one wants to take any step. But this doesn’t mean that good work took place only since 2015. We have been here only for seven years. IITs, IIMs, and universities were opened much before our time. But there was one thing missing – the bottom line. We have opened opportunities where the sky is the limit. But we forgot to look after the interests of 99 per cent of the students. We have ruined our bottom line. We can’t progress with only a handful of people who have made it big. What will make a difference is what the student from a village in Bihar or Jharkhand or even a jhuggi in Delhi will do after he/she passes out from class XII. But we faltered here and need to be rectified,” Mr Sisodia emphasised.
There have been leakages in the foundation, and missing dots in the education policies that need to be connected. “We need to understand these dots and go into the details of the New Education Policy. We talk about eliminating rote learning. This will continue to happen until we change the assessment methodology. We have introduced an entrepreneurship mindset programme for students to develop a job giver’s mindset. And this is where I would take the help of this forum. You can do this job more swiftly and easily than any Government,” Mr Sisodia said.
He said that their Government is also giving seed money of Rs 2,000 to class XI-XII students, to form groups and work on business ideas. In the last year, over 100 ideas came from these students. Of these, 57 students had some brilliant ideas and created seats in engineering and management where they can get admission directly. In this manner, we will be able to give this country entrepreneurs who can become leaders of tomorrow in the business world,” Mr Sisodia said.
Under the leadership of Delhi’s Deputy CM, the capital has seen some revolutionary changes and has set a benchmark in school education in the country and globally. Speaking at the occasion, Mr Aditya Berlia said that it is wonderful to hear about all the initiatives that CII is doing.
“I am very delighted to share the new education report for this year. The honorable Deputy CM, in fact, has been instrumental in this report since its inception. I still remember the time when sir (Delhi’s Deputy CM) held up the report for the very first time and said ‘this is my report’ rather than a report that was created by CII. We are very grateful for his support throughout. It is the only report that gives a full 360-degree picture of education and education initiatives in Delhi,” Mr Berlia said.
He further added that everyone is excited about the future since this year they will also be coming out with a report that compares Delhi as a knowledge hub to other major cities globally. “This is to truly benchmark what are the key initiatives that are being done and to make sure that Delhi is on an even competitive platform. Sir (Delhi’s Deputy CM) with your vision for this city, we are also aiming to start looking at Delhi as an educational competition to large cities and a network like Singapore, Dubai, New York, London, and Tokyo, to name a few,” Mr Berlia said.
Talking about a time when Delhi’s Deputy CM shared his extraordinary vision while working on multiple occasions and made them possible, Mr Berlia recounted an interaction from pre-Covid times.
“I would like to make this a personal anecdote. Sir and I were taking a tour of Delhi schools and we met a lot of teachers. The No 1 success story is the great pride we saw in every teacher, they were proud of the work they were doing, proud of the school they were leading, and truly proud of the curriculum and quality of education. If we are able to continue this sir, with a focus on our teachers with your vision, this will be fantastic,” Mr Berlia said.
Mr Berlia said that while he was excited about the future there are a few challenges that remain and enumerated the same. “One, for the first time we are seeing the true use cases of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, in the coming five years will eliminate a lot of low-hanging fruit and low-hanging jobs that are available for new graduates. This is a particular strain on low-level skilling, particularly for the white-collar workforce. Second, we are also seeing a lot of change in the classic pyramid where we had a situation where a lot of babies were being born and slowly going through the education system to the top. Today, India has dropped below the replacement rate and we see that in 2035 our population will start to de-grow. We have gone from a pyramid to a diamond where we have fewer children, but a large middle class between the ages of 25 to 35 which will need reskilling and re-education to confront the challenges of the future,” Mr Berlia said.
The third challenge Mr Berlia said was that as older become smaller, talent, especially the young, can work from anywhere and go anywhere. This makes education hubs like Delhi more and more important to create policies that are able to attract, retain and train this talent for them to choose Delhi as the No 1 place for them to base themselves.
“On the blue-collar side, low-cost automation, and high-quality environment and standards are also bringing down employment opportunities. We see education as the only way to address these challenges. We have a five-year runway to try and find solutions to these at the policy level to encourage pivots and changes. We can hope that with the vision of the Delhi Government and with the full support of the CII at any point, we create a foundation to bridge these gaps and challenges and create a more enlightening future,” Mr Berlia said.
Mr Madhav Singhania said the theme: Transforming Education to Transform the World – Building a Strong Foundation for Youth aligns with the Government’s vision of quality education for all.
Everyone is excited about the future since this year they will also be coming out with a report that compares Delhi as a knowledge hub to other major cities globally. This is to truly benchmark what are the key initiatives that are being done and to make sure that Delhi is on an even competitive platform
ADITYA BERLIA, CO-PROMOTER APEEJAY STYA AND SVRAN GROUP AND CO-FOUNDER AND PRO-CHANCELLOR OF APEEJAY STYA UNIVERSITY
“We are extremely happy to have with us the Deputy CM of Delhi. He has been one of the leaders in transforming the education sector in Delhi. Aditya (Mr Berlia) has been instrumental in leading the panel on education on behalf of CII and in releasing the report every year through Apeejay Stya Education Foundation which gives us the developments, opportunities, and challenges that we have seen over the years in the education sector,” Mr Singhania said.
Congratulating the Delhi Government and Manishji (Delhi’s Deputy CM) for receiving global acclaim for most of its policies, especially in the transformation of the Delhi Government schools.
“Since 2015, under the leadership of Manishji, the Delhi Government has taken multiple initiatives in education with the biggest being that 22 per cent of Delhi’s Budget has been allocated to education which is the largest across all states. It has made me read his book Shiksha. Over the last few years, we have been able to place 2,800 students across various institutes with an aim to have a placement of over 9,000 students in the next two years. We thank you, sir, for encouraging CII to come forward and partner with the Government on some of the initiatives which you have been leading. Based on your suggestion we have been working on the Center of Excellence (COE) sessions with industry and start-up leaders to encourage school students to learn about their experiences and take up entrepreneurship as a career,” Mr Singhania said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught the importance of technology and has led to a massive digital transformation across sectors, Mr Singhania said. “The Delhi Government has started the model of virtual schools, the first of its kind to provide education to students remotely through personalised teaching. We would be happy to conduct skill enhancement programmes targeted at teachers, to enhance technology teaching competency and knowledge. Another area where we would like to propose along the lines of your progressive vision is to provide space science to create curiosity among students and prepare them for the upcoming space revolution. CII also proposes to set up space labs in Delhi Government schools. The objective is to provide students with resources and opportunities to work on innovative ideas to explore and help develop our future space scientists and astronauts,” Mr Singhania said.
Professor Singh said that the topic: Transforming Education to Transform the World – Building a Strong Foundation for Youth – is an interesting one. “When we talk about the word ‘transformation’ the only effective instrument is education. Also, there is a need to understand the difference between education and training. There are many definitions of education but according to Aristotle, it is “the creation of a sound mind in a sound body”. The purpose of education is to: Samaj ki samaj ko viksit karna. When we talk about transformation, one must understand that our degrees are mere pieces of paper. A person’s education must be seen in one’s behaviour,” Professor Singh said.
He added that in order to transform anything, the most important thing is to bring about transformation in the mindset of the leadership – industry stakeholders. “The success of the National Education Policy depends on the correct implementation of the policy. If we fail to do so, there will be no positive outcome. In our education system, we are trained in three words – Competition, competition, and competition. But in reality, what is needed is collaboration. We are not trained in this regard. We talk about the need to eliminate rote learning and concentrate on conceptual learning. But our evaluation system compels students to rote learn; again there is a need for mindset change. The education system should be such that it allows even a 65-year-old to study. It is important to open the university doors for the citizens,” Professor Singh opined.
Delivering the vote of thanks Mr Berlia said: “I thank the Deputy CM for spending his valuable time at the Summit. We are always excited about his drive, vision, and understanding of the realities of education. I also thank Yogeshji, as a very enlightened VC who continues to help us. We, at CII, acknowledge that we should not ask what education can do for the industry but what the industry can do for education. We talk about the industry-education interface but are now moving toward the student-industry interface and industry-parent interface. One of the things that we have learnt is that educational institutions are ready, parents have to be ready. If the industry takes the leadership lead and goes with the report card to the parent and says if your child gets a report where he exhibits great qualities and not just in marks, we will give him a job since he can be a great entrepreneur. This is where CII understands our responsibility in this regard and we are happy to work in making this happen in Delhi and beyond,” Mr Berlia said.
I thank the Deputy CM for spending his valuable time at the Summit. We are always excited about his drive, vision, and understanding of the realities of education. I also thank Yogeshji, as a very enlightened VC who continues to help us. We, at CII, acknowledge that we should not ask what education can do for the industry but what the industry can do for education
Aditya Berlia, Co-promoter Apeejay Stya and Svran Group and Co-Founder and Pro-Chancellor of Apeejay Stya University
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Shalini is an Executive Editor with Apeejay Newsroom. With a PG Diploma in Business Management and Industrial Administration and an MA in Mass Communication, she was a former Associate Editor with News9live. She has worked on varied topics - from news-based to feature articles.
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