Meeting chalks out strategy to bring students,industry closer

between the students and industries. Higher Education Commissioner Jayanti Ravi proposed that such moves could be integrated with the department’s initiative to introduce more internship-oriented curriculum from the next academic year. The choice-based credit system,Ravi said,would include “elective courses with industry linkages”,such as internships for institutes running faculties of law,bachelors of law and bachelors of commerce.

Associate Professor G J Joshi,Dean (Student Counselling),Sardar Vallabhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT),Surat,said his institute will take up the issue “as soon as possible”. “We are the nodal NIT for Industry-NIT consortiums across the country. We shall take the initiative in talking to these consortiums and work out a plan,” he said.

He added that SVNIT would provide students 24-hour access to the institute’s labs so that they can work on projects throughout day and night.

Chandran Chatterjee,director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Development,which functions under the Gujarat

Department of Industries and Mines,said awareness about government’s schemes needs to be raised,such as the state’s 2009 industrial policy which provides subsidies of up to 60 per cent for the use of government labs for institutes.

Higher Education Commissioner Ravi also raised the issue when she spoke about Gujarat using only a “single-digit percentage of what it is entitled to” as far as the UGC’s schemes for funding major and minor research is concerned.

IIM-A Professor Anil K Gupta and the online portal Techpedia.in organised the meet.