Rai Business School, Bangalore organized a National Summit on Higher Education on 9th of Dec’06. The topic for the event was “Labour Market of Liberalization Era - Need for Strategic Intervention in Higher Education”. As a socially responsible institution, RBS tries to bring society, academia and industry under one roof to bridge the gap for optimum educational design. Head of the institutions from different colleges across the country and senior functionaries of companies from different industries attended the summit.

The summit began with the keynote address of Prof. K. Balasubrmanian, Regional Director, Rai Business School, Bangalore, who elaborated the relevance & challenges of acquiring employable skills-set during education. The eminent speakers – Mr. Vikas Gera, World Wide Manager (Global Delivery), HP; Mr. Dayanand Guddin, GM-HR, Madura Garments, Ms. Sadiqa Peerbhoy, Director, Innergy Academic & Research Center and Mr. A.S.Chandramouli, Dy. Director (AR & MKTG.), Doordarshan – showered Gyan about the importance of employable skills, emerging trends and requirements.

Mr. Gera in his address stressed on how IT companies are trying to source the quality workforce from smaller cities in India and the difficulties facing the industry because of the dearth of talent in key skill areas. Mr. Dayanand focused on the major changes needed in curriculum design and assessment criteria to tune the students’ skills-set with the industry needs. Analyzing the problem of lack of skilled manpower, Ms. Peerbhoy said that corporate India should play a pivotal role in education to fulfill these aspirations. Mr. Chandramouli talked about the scope and scale of job opportunities in media.

Mr. Vinay Rai, President, Rai Foundation in his address emphasized that industries and academics must go hand in hand for deeper understanding and better results. The focus primarily must be on the skill based, job oriented courses. He pointed that many institutions are offering innovative courses but the problem is certification / recognition / approval by government. Identifying and recognizing such programs is the duty of the state to improve employability, he further added. Talking about the efforts made by Rai Foundation he said that all the campuses across India would continue with the trend of introducing new innovative programs that enhance employability especially for educationally backward states.