Date:20/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/20/stories/2008122060341200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Job opportunities need to keep pace with growth of education

Special Correspondent

— Photo: R. Ragu

golden girl: Governor Surjit Singh Barnala presenting a gold medal to Sushma T, who did her B.E. in Civil Engineering, at Anna University’s 29th Convocation on Friday. (From left) Pro Chancellor K. Ponmudi and Vice-Chancellor P. Mannar Jawahar, are in the picture.

CHENNAI: Even as the supply of graduates increases, the demand, in terms of adequate employment, needs to keep pace with the growth of education, said Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy, addressing graduates of Anna University, at its 29th convocation ceremony.

Along with a record 374 Ph.D. degrees, the University awarded graduate, postgraduate and research degrees to 67,034 students this year.

Congratulating the students, Mr. Ponmudy asked, “For your proud parents sitting with you in this hall, is your degree alone enough? Your parents want to know if you are going to become a professor at Anna University or an executive at Cognizant or if you are going to Singapore for a job or going to the US for a job.”

This was why government had taken steps to increase employment opportunities in the State, attracting some of the world’s top companies to set up shop here and create jobs for the State’s graduates, he said. The Minister’s words come at a time when slowing economic growth seems to have slowed recruitment from many technical educational institutions in the State.

He also congratulated the university for the large number of Ph.D. scholars this year. “We need to increase quantity and improve quality…It should be the aim of all universities to produce more PhDs,” he said, adding that the focus should be on basic sciences, socially relevant education and an interdisciplinary approach to research.

The Ph.D. graduates and gold medallists from graduate and postgraduate courses received their degrees from Chancellor and Governor Surjit Singh Barnala, who also presented an honorary doctorate to Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman of Cognizant.

Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan was honoured in recognition of his achievements in the information technology sector, creating over 60,000 direct jobs, leading his company to a $1 billion revenue milestone, and serving as an industry leader and spokesman at NASSCOM, said Vice-Chancellor P. Mannar Jawahar, reading out the citation.

The success of the Indian IT sector as well as other technical sectors of the Indian economy was the theme of the convocation address by K. Tamilmani, chief executive of the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification at the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Such economic achievements in various fields since Independence would not have been possible without quality technical education, he said.