Build on social strength to achieve growth: Minister

Updated on: Friday, January 28, 2011

Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) D. Purandeswari has called for upgrading the quality of management education in the country to ensure that the nation had managers capable of meeting the challenges of the global business world when India emerged as a major economic power.

Inaugurating an international symposium on HR leadership challenges for business in India, organised by the Indian Institute of Management - Kozhikode (IIM-K), Dr. Purandeswari said the emphasis of the nation's development paradigm should be on using its social strength for economic growth.

Social strength that was built on literacy rate, quality of education and skills possessed by the workforce would play a key role in the nation's success in the knowledge- and technology-driven economy in the future, the Minister said in her address to the delegates attending the two-day symposium on the scenic IIM-K campus here.

She said “India was a land of ideas… the task before modern managers was to convert it into a land of opportunities.”

She was happy there were clear signs indicating that the nation's business leaders had already started recognising this fact . Proof of it was the fact that Indian cars were now on the roads in the U.K.

Dr. Purandeswari said it was high time management students focussed on case studies based on Indian situations instead of cases that were more relevant to the U.S. and Europe. Stressing the need to improve the quality of management education here so that the nation would have high quality managers, the Minister said problems related to faculty shortage in IIMs and the standard of management education in private B-schools had to addressed seriously.” Our goal should be to produce management graduates who would command respect across the world,” she said.

Earlier, Debashis Chatterjee, Director-IIM-K, welcomed the gathering.

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