Skill-based education need of the hour, says Dr RS Bawa

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 20

“The technology and information savvy students of the modern era are well informed and judicious while planning their career and do not refrain from selecting an emerging field as a career, rather than choosing a contemporary one,” said Dr RS Bawa, vice-chancellor, Chandigarh University. “As a result, universities have to be well prepared by having a rich industry-academia interface, offering skill-based education that goes beyond the scope of just churning out graduates and post-graduates as today’s youth want to take up skill oriented education which can lead to employment or entrepreneurship,” he added.

Addressing a press meet in the city today, Dr Bawa said students from Punjab, especially from the Malwa region, are well informed as they are choosing emerging areas like data analytics, information security, cloud computing, bio-technology, animation and film production as their career, keeping an eye on the changing job trends offered by the industry.

“Students are now opting for specialised and industry-oriented programmes in emerging areas as it offers better placement opportunities and Chandigarh University offers programmes in emerging areas such as aerospace engineering, mechatronics engineering, industry collaborative courses in the emerging fields of cloud computing, big data analytics and information security,” he said.

While launching the all-India scholarship based entrance test, CU-SAT (Chandigarh University Scholarship and Admission Test), Dr Bawa said, “CU-SAT would be a scholarship based all-India entrance test for under-graduate and MBA programmes offered by Chandigarh University for the 2017 session where students can become eligible for academic scholarships worth Rs 10 crores.”

Dr Bawa further added that the test would be conducted online in May-June based upon which scholarships would be offered to more than 800 students across 21 streams and students from any stream after 10+2 and MBA aspirants would be eligible to appear for the online entrance examination and test centres would be available across 12 states.