human resources at the national vice chancellors meet kiran karnik nasscom president lamented the poor quality of graduates the kind who have a degree but are not employable students invest time and money in education expecting returns in the form of a job but that is simply not happening he saiduniversity of pune vice chancellor narendra jadhav who recently conducted a sessions on soft skills in several colleges affiliated to his university cant agree more on the importance of technical skills for years ive been pushing for industryinstitution interaction if this scheme is going to promote that it seems like a great idea he saiduniversity of mumbai vc vijay khole too described it as a progressive one in fact mumbai university recently permitted fulltime degree students to take up courses in the universitys vocational college the garware institute of career education and development the response has been phenomenal which indicates that the government scheme too will see a good response said kholethere are those who feel that the step is too little too late b venkatesh kumar a lecturer at the university of mumbai said if the state is saying that that vocationalisation of education is the need of the hour they are too late anyway its good we are looking in this direction at the same time students must realise that their regular degree education cannot be done away with other teachers worry that the state is granting too much flexibility to individual colleges every system must be institutionalised said one professorin order to ensure that that the courses are not all theory and no practice the syllabus will be drawn up in partnership with the industry and not by academics alone the onus for the broad brushstrokes of the syllabus will be on the vocational education department whose job it will be to liaise between academia and industry colleges can then adapt the syllabus to suit their specific needsindustry is pleased with the proposal the managing director of bpo stream asia pacific vineet mittal called it a winwin situation for all of the hundred people we screen five to seven make it the question is not about the number of applicants but their quality this scheme if implemented well will tap into a lot of dormant talentmilind padalkar vicepresident of patni computers agreed that industry and academia need to collaborate which is why his company partnered with the mba institute s p jain to offer specialised courses in supply chain managementthe governments resolution will soon be passed by the cabinet once department heads hold meetings with college principals while g r shekapure director vocational education is still finetuning the scheme the aim is crystal clear to cut short the distance between campus and placement