JOIN USMake career guidance must from Class 8: Panel
Mandatory career guidance from Class 8 onwards and internships for graduate students in top technology companies are among the recommendations made by a task force in its report given to the Karnataka government on Tuesday.
Karnataka can create two to three million jobs by 2025 in digital skills and tech-based industries alone, the 'Karnataka Skill, Entrepreneurship and Startups Task Force’ said.
It urged the government to introduce digital skills for schools and colleges. Also, a mandatory curriculum on entrepreneurship mindset development from Class 9 has been recommended.
“As of FY21, the IT industry employed more than 4.3 million people out of which 33 per cent is Karnataka’s share...we expect Karnataka to grow at 10 per cent CAGR from 1.4 million people to two million in FY25 to be employed in digital skills,” the task force said in its report, adding that jobs in domains like cloud computing, cyber security, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things will be in high demand.
The government should reach out to the likes of Infosys, Microsoft and IBM to create internships for graduate students, it said.
According to the report, Karnataka is ranked in the top two when it comes to jobs in digital skills with the IT industry adding 1.38 lakh people in FY21. However, the report flagged that nearly 60 per cent of one lakh graduates from Karnataka’s 257 engineering colleges are unemployed after campus placements.
The task force has asked the government to come up with tailor-made courses for graduate students to address the skill gap and launch a ‘Future Digital Jobs’ initiative for engineering colleges located outside Bengaluru.
The report is classified into six groups: digital skills and entrepreneurship mindset in schools and colleges; career information and guidance; youth entrepreneurship incubation at colleges; entrepreneurship ecosystem at districts; digital services and tech-based models and agriculture and agri-tech.
The report also recommends a new Karnataka Research and Innovation Authority to strengthen the incubation ecosystem on the lines of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in Israel. And, a pilot programme to promote agri-entrepreneurs by linking them to Farmer Producers Organisations (FPO) and farm universities.
Task Force chairperson S Selva Kumar, who also heads the skill development and primary & secondary education departments, said the report recommends what needs to be done to create 10 million jobs in ten years.
Startup Vision Group chairperson Prashanth Prakash said the report is demand-driven. "The real opportunity that's special to Karnataka is the ability to create startup-drive jobs," he said.
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