Basic skills of entrepreneurship should be taught in engineering schools| Here’s why – India Today

Here are some reasons why it is important to teach these skills.

The basic skills of entrepreneurship should be taught in engineering schools| All you need to know

By India Today Web Desk: The work dynamics have changed drastically in the past couple of decades. Presently, securing a high-paying job was considered a mark of success, post-completion of an engineering degree. The new trend of success would be to hone their passion towards innovative product development and become a globally renowned entrepreneur. Is the education system ready to cater this demand of the student? The NEP 2020 offers a lot of flexibilities in terms of multi entry multi exit, tailor made programs, dual degree, multidisciplinary courses. It is the responsibility of the education institutes to properly utilise these flexibilities to transform the innovation to enterprise. They should also ensure to enable the degree to aid the innovation rather than making it as a burden. This would certainly the best contribution by education system for self-reliant India.

REASONS WHY TEACHING THESE SKILLS ARE IMPORTANT:

TOP-NOTCH ENTREPRENEURS IN THE WORLD REALISED THEIR POTENTIAL AT AN AVERAGE AGE OF 20

It is a fact that most successful entrepreneurs begin early on their journey towards establishing a successful Start-up. Thereby it’s essential to trigger innovation during freshman or sophomore years of engineering. Courses like Design thinking and innovation can be floated with multidisciplinary constitution to identify and dig out the hidden innovative talent.

MOST INTELLECT AT THAT AGE IN INDIA WOULD BE PURSUING ENGINEERING

The bulk of the students in India pursue engineering as under graduation. It is the responsibility of the engineering schools to develop job provider than jobseekers. This would curtail the employment problem in due course of time.

ENGINEERING EDUCATION HAS BECOME AN ENABLER FOR GLOBAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Engineering as a degree is multidimensional and offers great knowledge and insight into the practicality of various phenomena. This is the reason, it is considered a benchmark for global business and job opportunities. The job opportunities are lucrative and educational loans will be haunting to give up innovation. It is the role of educational institute to provide proper ecosystem to enable the start-up to take early traction and generate revenues. Confidence should be given to student that recruiters value more the students with start-up experience than others for higher packages. The experience that they gain from the failures of start-up are impeccable and cannot be provided by any company as a part of training. Transferable Skills Design Thinking

• Critical Thinking
• Logical Thinking
• Innovation Management
• Project Management
• People Management
• Networking
• Finance management
• Communication (LSRW)

Will make them prepared for career option in their life, even they fail in their start-up.

TIME TO FOCUS ON DEVELOPING OWN PRODUCTS/SOLUTIONS/SERVICES

The degree years provide the best opportunity for a student to focus on developing their own products/solutions/services. When it is coupled with learning entrepreneurial skills, it does great wonders for the student.

INDIAN STUDENTS REMAIN IGNORANT ABOUT THEIR IMMENSE ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS

Despite having a great business community, Indian students in general are alien to the various tricks of the common trade. The optimising algorithms that run their brain to work with limited resources, the easy way of getting things done, the multicultural brought up. All these skills would naturally prepare them for the business world, right after their childhood. But because of the conservative mind-set of parents and institutes the talent remain unexplored.

ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS GO HAND-IN-HAND

A student needs both engineering and management skills to become a successful entrepreneur.But most of the educational institutes offer these programs in silos. Hence, they institute to ensure to offer open electives related to innovation management, finance management, marketing, product development etc. To imbibe managerial skills into engineering.Several educational institutes and universities have introduced hybrid programs in the form of minors, dual degrees aiming to provide knowledge of both engineering and management, simultaneously. This is just a step forward in direction of preparing future entrepreneurs.

PROJECTS RUN ONLY TO MEET ACADEMIC RESEARCH REQUIREMENTS AND USER REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT CONSIDERED

It is a common scenario that projects are generally taken up from research papers/articles. But for successful entrepreneur conducting field study to understand user requirements and developing a project statement is the key for innovation. Hence, courses like design thinking, social internship are to be offered by inclusion of field study.

Check list for the basic ‘must have’ Entrepreneurial skill-set

• Problem-solving ability
• Financial management capability
• Leadership qualities
• Product development skill
• Organisational skills
• Communication and networking

Apart from the above pointers, the student needs to develop empathy for the problems that exist in the business world as these problems are gold mines of opportunities. Multidisciplinary courses, field studies, mentors, idea labs and start-up semester are the key enablers that bring out the best in a student in terms of an entrepreneur. Also, nowadays, there is vast support from the Government of India for budding entrepreneurs, in terms of incubation centres, Smart India Hackathons, idea labs, funding schemes, and much more. A proper design of Academic curriculum with appropriate usage of Academic flexibilities provided by NEP 2020 will the right source to dig out the hidden entrepreneurs amongst the rich human resource of engineering students.

Authored by Dr. K. Narasimmha Raju, HOD, Design Thinking and Innovation, Associate Dean, Academic Innovations, KL Deemed to be University