Major changes on the anvil to bridge industry-academia divide: Ashwath Narayan

Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan during an interaction with The Hindu in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

The State government has decided to bring in a number of legislative and structural changes to address the disconnect between the industry and academia and increase the employability of fresh graduates, said Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan in an interaction with The Hindu on Tuesday.

“This divide has been traditionally hurting both employers and fresh hires. To solve this issue, we are bringing in a lot of structural changes to our educational system, in line with the National Education Policy. We will also announce structural changes in the legislative and administrative fronts in a few months so that we will be ready with a new approach in our education system by 2021,” said Mr. Narayan, who also holds the IT, BT and Science & Technology portfolios.

“It is going to be a huge collaborative effort and we are actively reaching out to academia and industry to make it a reality,” he said.

Mr. Narayan said that connectivity had emerged as an essential element for both individuals and enterprises during the pandemic. “Connectivity has never been so critical as it is today. In fact, telecom was not part of any ministry here earlier and now it has been brought under the IT, BT and S&T Ministry. We opened a single window to issue the required permissions to telecom service providers for laying cables, installations, and set up other connectivity infrastructure. This is going to give a fillip to our ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ initiatives as well,” he said.

Referring to the startup promotion initiatives taken by the State, Mr. Narayan said a grant of ₹150 crore was disbursed under ‘Elevate’ and some 500 startups were the beneficiaries. “We have come out with several initiatives such as ESDN Policy, Karnataka Innovation Authority, Karnataka Digital Mission etc.,” he said.

The 23rd edition of the State’s annual tech exposition — Bengaluru Tech Summit — is scheduled to be held between November 19 and 21. It will be attended by representatives from 25 countries, according to Mr. Narayan, and will be a virtual event this time.