Hyderabad: Osmania University Global Alumni Meet-2023 insists on five-point agenda

Hyderabad: The two-day Global Alumni Meet-2023 of Osmania University has set the record straight for what to do to improve education standards, skill development and employability and branding of the State universities.

The participating researchers, academicians, industries leaders and alumni, besides former vice-chancellors of OU have given a five-point agenda.

Firstly, a university's reputation and recognition within the country and abroad come from the kind of core research done by its faculty. Towards this end, experts have asked to draw up short, medium, and long-term plans on how to improve department-wise research capacities. Additionally, the research could be conducted by individual faculty or groups, and forging ties with other Higher Educational institutions (HEIs) and research and industrial labs.

This, they said, would lead to free flow of academic research to the industry for exploring their application in industries. At the same timer the requirement of industries would be known to the faculty, to carry out research with an industrial orientation as well,forming a win-win situation for both the university and the industry. Secondly, student internships and scholarships would help narrow down the skill sets gap between industries requirements and academic teaching. The universities could bring changes in their academic syllabus to give not only academic orientation but also industrial skill sets integrated to improve the students' learning curve. For this, some participating industrialists and researchers at GAM suggested keeping at least a semester or six months internship for students in an industry. In turn, it makes students employable and job ready as per the industry requirements.

Third, the university is asked to start its own incubation and innovation hub for students to experiment with their ideas and bring innovations. There were only a few hundred startups six to eight years ago. But, now the country has around 70,000 startups- exploring agriculture, defence, space tech, aviation and other fields, they reminded.

Fourth, one of the key aspects was that it was absolutely necessary for Indians to catch up with what others are doing in other countries; following up on what is happening at Harvard or MIT. Now it is time for things to happen in India and the younger generation is capable of doing.