India needs skill development and education as key drivers for growth: Centurion University VC

Prof. Supriya Pattanayak, Vice Chancellor, Centurion University one of the few universities which focuses on skills along with teaching talks abOut the important of skills in changing demands of the industry. She also talks about various initiatives taken by the university to upskill students. Read the excerpts of the interview below...

Q. Govt is stressing a lot on skill based courses, how is Centurion University imparting skill and practical training to students?

A. Though of late there has been much talks about creating industry-ready workforce, Odisha’s Centurion University had paved the way for skill-integrated education with its inception more than a decade ago. Taking over a failed engineering college campus, we were catering to a disadvantaged population in one of Odisha’s most remote districts where majority of the students were first generation learners aspiring for higher education.

Realising that traditional approach of classroom teaching would be redundant to make our students industry ready, various steps were taken. Introduction of Practise-oriented training, Applied Learning with the help of On Campus labs, hands on experience along with Action Learning through Live Production formed the basis for education. We don’t just teach literacy and numeracy skills but focus on Technical Domain Skills, Life Skills, Professional Skills and Entrepreneurship Skills that are imparted to the students across multiple campuses in Odisha.

As a pioneer of Skill Integrated Higher Education, we ensure that our students gain practical learning through the manufacturing units of the campus that become their training ground. This unique model builds up on sustainable livelihood on national scale that can challenge education across geographies that creates employable students as soon as they pass out from the university.

In tune with NEP 2020 and Sustainable Development Goals, Centurion University aims at creating awork force that is ready for Industry 4.0while also creating social impact through various projects.

Q. What according to you are the Must-Have Technology Skills for a Thriving Career in 2023-24?

A. To be ready for industry 4.0, India needs skill development and education as key drivers for the growth, especially in the manufacturing sector. Centurion University being one of the pioneers of integrating skills with education has also taken steps to impart technical skills to the students. The manufacturing units designed to develop local solutions to real life problems encompass domains like manufacturing and maintenance of transformer, manufacturing furniture, Pavers, apparel, electric vehicle manufacturing as well as chalk manufacturing. Our students can manufacture an e-rickshaw, while they can design cars too. Thus students get hands on experience and are comfortable with latest technology in their respective fields.

This multi-pronged approach also includes social initiatives where a diverse spectrum of issues is addressed.

Q. How do you look at the Importance of industry-aligned higher education?

A. Centurion offers 120 skill courses with 45 domain specializations giving students a plethora of choices to choose from. There are more than 50 industry sponsored labs where students can practise and become comfortable with recent technologies and by the end of the course they are industry ready. The manufacturing units are the training grounds for students and Live Labs provide hands on knowledge to them. For example, students pursuing a course in Agriculture learn about farming where they treat it as an enterprise and the farmer becomes the entrepreneur. Appropriate and viable technologies are introduced in the program where they learn about polyhouses, automation, tissue culture, drone spraying as well as precision agriculture. This multidisciplinary approach is offered to students across various courses ranging from diplomas and certificates to degree courses. Such industry aligned higher education impacts the fresh pass outs as they can now confidently face the challenges of their job.

Q. Do you think research should be made an integral part of higher education at every level, how will it help the student community?

A. While the PHD courses focus on academic research, our courses offered also enable the students with the opportunity to understand the essence of research that is based on product designing, innovative thinking, business related researches for brands and find real time solution to problems. The 24 Research Centres become the melting pot where academic staff and students collaborate and find solutions for everyday life problems. This collaboration yields interesting projects, published works, where patents are applied for. Students and faculty members are also encouraged to come up with ground breaking concepts and register start-ups.

Q. Tell us something about your collaborations with other national and international institutions.

A. Our motto is ‘shaping lives, empowering communities’, thus we are focused on Community Action Learning. Students go out in the community, identify problems, find logical solutions for these local issues and fix them. Our electrical engineering students have carried out drives where they go out and fix faulty appliances or wiring. It adds to their communication skills, negotiating skills apart from developing confidence. It also helps to reduce, recycle, and reuse promoting sustainable living.

Furthermore, we have collaborations with reputed organization like AMS-India Advanced Mechanical Services Bangalore, Dassault Systemes, AUS- Aarav Unmanned Systems, General Aeronautics, AMTZ Vishakhapatnam, UNITY which enable students to get hands on learning. Degrees integrated with leading companies such as Dassault Systemes and AWS lead to graduation with an industry certificate, which is essential to stand out from the crowd of students passing out the same year.

Q. How do you look at new-age careers in business analytics/ data analytics?

A. By combining data from numerous sources to provide micro-level insights into customer behaviour and purchasing habits, marketing automation has always kept up with brands. This has advanced the purchasing and consumer experience, enabling businesses to amass a large following of devoted consumers.

A growing number of industries are turning to big data to enable automation and virtual reality applications, including those in the automotive, agricultural, lifestyle, and gaming industries. Big data and AI technology, can for example work together to assist farmers find nutrient shortages in the soil. Manufacturers can create strategic demand and consensus plans thanks to data research. Organisations can more efficiently manage risk when they use a data-driven decision-making process, particularly in the financial and insurance sectors.

Future company decision-making processes will likely be influenced by data analytics and business analytics due to the expanding need and diverse uses. Keeping this in mind Centurion University offers just the right course for students in data science, machine learning, cloud technology, metaverse technologies, SAAS etc as graduate degree courses.

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