A young and dynamic entrepreneur with expertise in business innovation, Mr. Ajit Chauhan has been spearheading Amity Online, Amity Future Academy and Amity Skills as Chairman since 2012. He serves as a Trustee and Deputy President on the board of Ritnand Balved Education Foundation, the umbrella body for all Amity Educational Initiatives.
Mr. Chauhan has done his Masters in Marketing from ESADE Business School, Spain and SDA Bocconi School of Management Italy. He completed his Bachelor’s degree from Babson College, Boston. He believes in expanding the scope of digital technology in education beyond geographical boundaries and using it to offer both students and working professionals rewarding career prospects in the future. He invests his time in learning about new innovations and growth opportunities in different sectors.
From the past few years, there has been a drastic change in the job market scenario, and it is going to continue for another decade. With the growth of technology and digitization, jobs are getting highly specialized and automated. Consequently, there is a learning gap that needs to be addressed by the educational sector. Skilling employees/individuals are important not just to keep up with the technological trends, but also to stay ahead of the competition. According to the Talent Shortage Survey 2017, conducted by the Manpower Group, 40 percent of employers worldwide reported a lack of skilled, qualified workers with the necessary skills to fill open positions. This clearly shows us that upskilling is the need of the hour and demonstrates a massive skill-gap in today’s workforce.
Upgrading the skills and being relevant with the times is a necessity across domains and levels. Fast-paced, demanding working environment does not provide leverage of time. A course targeted to an experienced professional upgrading to a parallel space does not need to be a detailed course including the elementary information. A pedagogy suited to her requirement with the point curriculum and easy to understand content makes the learning effective as well as fast.
Impact of Upskilling
Automation is responsible for rendering jobs redundant in the IT sector as machines replace humans in many jobs. The IT industry, which once drew employees in large numbers, has suffered from large-scale layoffs recently, which have made it volatile. Upskilling is the only way to stay abreast with new methods and remain relevant.
With upskilling and re-skilling, students and employees undoubtedly improve their employability and avoid redundancy. Learning new skills also quickly helps them to adapt to the changing needs of the business and opens up new avenues for career enhancement. Eventually, all this leads to a better, rich and fulfilling career which significantly impacts not only their lives but also the lives of people who are dependent on them – family, parents, etc.
Democratizing education for all does not just yield personal growth of learners, & it holistically leads to a better economic world. As the GDP of a nation is very highly dependent on skills its’ Workforce possesses which by far has been reflected in policies of many nations today.
Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0
Industry 4.0 looks into emerging technologies to make the economy smarter and create new jobs. For instance, Amity Future Academy is on a similar mission to provide skills to ready the Industry 4.0 workforce. In order to provide a better understanding of various technological trends for the ever-changing future, it will allow individuals to explore futuristic trends. The courses offer advanced training programs that are specially designed to create a pool of high-quality professionals and help young professionals gain in-demand skills.
Considering the importance of educational technologies for higher education, the emphasis should be given to meet the expanding future student demand along with improving the learning experience.
Following things can be done to bridge the gap:
- Enabling students with skills related to employability and job creation, entrepreneurship and enterprise skills.
- Early-stage research and development experience
- International exposure at the undergraduate level to provide a wider worldview
On the flipside, Education 4.0 is more about the personalization of the learning process. For the enhancement of students, universities are adopting new technologies, innovative teaching methods, online content delivery, use of LMS and ERP solutions and blended learning models for a personalized and adaptive learning experience.
We embrace Education 4.0 learning by being the first in India to rationalize the concept of knowledge for tomorrow. We want to get the future leaders ready, so they contribute to the vision of seeing India as the knowledge superpower.
Ultimately, content is king in any academic environment. Every student has a different style of perceiving the concept and nuances of a skill. But the cognition will happen only when the concept is enabled with the appropriate content. Else the concept goes off from the memory which leads to a gap in skill. Good content, irrespective of its forms such as text, animation or video, encourages users to engage with the course, whether they realize it or not. If the content is genuinely good and interesting, the learner will pause to consume the content, understand the concept and interact with it.
The domains identified for Amity Future Academy have always been dynamic with advancement and newer areas being introduced frequently, more so now. The courses have been developed keeping this in focus and are designed to provide the necessary push ahead of the curve. Practitioners in the domain need to imbibe these technologies to provide impetus to their career. (As told to the Editor)