Igniting Young Minds –Building Survival skills at School Level

Lecture to the Head Masters & English teachers of North Karnataka Region on 7-Apr-07 at Hubli, Dharwad Dist, Karnataka.

It was one of those a busy days in office and I was rushing to attend an important meeting when I got a call from Prof. B L Desai, Head of Dept. of B V Bhoomaraddi Engineering College, he wanted to discuss something important & urgent. I informed him that I would call back later.

Prof. B L Desai is one of the most respected names among the teaching fraternity in north Karnataka. He has been serving BVB College for the last 3 decades and is very passionate about teaching and shaping careers of many youngsters. I called up Prof. Desai to find out the details about his call and I heard something very special, he almost spoke my heart and requested me if I can be part of the same.

Many times I had shared my dream of creating a forum to develop employable skills among youths so that they can accomplish their aspirations by learning the essential skills that are required by the industry during their childhood days. Prof. BL Desai had managed to put together about 200 High School Headmasters & English teachers under one roof with the support from Education Minister of Karnatka, Commissioner & DDPI [Deputy Director of Public Instruction]. He requested me to address the gathering on 7-Apr-07 in Hubli. Even though I was nervous in the beginning but agreed to do my best as I felt it was a great honor to meet our beloved teachers.

I am sharing my thoughts on how can we Ignite young minds and facilitate a smooth transition from School to Corporate world. I had the great opportunity to share my views & ideas with people who craft millions of children’s careers they are our TEACHERS. Many years ago I was their child where they would impress me everyday when I went to school and I could see many of them as role models. Today it was my turn to share my view on this whole issue of Employable skills of our youth brigade.

Competitiveness of India Inc;
Traditionally many decades age India was known as a country of snake charmers, land of complete backwardness, millions of illiterates, likes to be followers than creators [300 years we were ruled by the British] to where we are today.

India as a country has more than 380 universities, more than 10,000 different colleges, lakhs of graduates, more than 50% of universities across India use English as a medium of teaching, more than 6000 PhD’s and so on.. and on…..

India is also one of the fastest developing economies in the world today, targeting double digit GDP Growth. India hosts 65% of Information Technology global off-shoring workforce, 46% of global BPO [Business Process Outsourcing], having said that we also have many issues such as sustaining Diversity (Religion, language, culture etc.), unemployment, poverty, social security, health and many more which needs to be addressed to ensure Democracy and Economical prowess.

World view of India:
Many global companies are excited about India story and they want to be part of our success story. Many of these companies have a special chapter for India story in their yearly business plans. Many believe that we have the best of both the worlds “Ability to relate to the rest of the world by means of speaking a global business language [English] & Intellect ability to create the worlds best Intellectual Property”. Also our neighbors China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea’s are catching up with building strong language skills. For instance China has employed 30,000 English trainers to impart English Language skills so that they build competitive advantage over other Asian countries.

All Taxi Drivers in China to learn English before the 2008 Olympics. They have also made English compulsory at primary school level to build greater need to learn English language skills.
Indian IT Industry Challenges:
One and the only challenge is to hire the best right talent at the right time with a right cost. Indian IT would need 300,000 qualified Employable engineers in the next 1 - 2 years. Today many of the industry leaders are burning midnight oil to chalk out strategies to build employable skills to all their employees. Many large players are spending in excess of Rs.600 Crores per annum towards training/grooming people on various aspects of industrial & technological requirements.

Some of the key skills that every young engineer need to acquire during early days of their schooling/college;
Business Language Skills
Reading, Writing, speaking, Articulation, assertive skills
Problem solving, cognitive thinking, Values, ethics & social responsibility etc.
Industry/domain knowledge, skill & ability to deal with uncertainties of the changing world
Behavioral etiquettes – Social life style, personal grooming, corporate etiquettes, appreciating culture etc.
Leadership Skills – Self leadership, People, Diversity Management etc.

The task of imparting all the above skills seems herculean and impossible at school, college level. These may not be part of any curriculum, but we often miss out on all these and hence end result is lack of competencies to get into corporate world. This leads to many issues among the student communities across the country.

There is a saying The mediocre teacher tells, The good teacher explains, The superior teacher demonstrates, The great teacher inspires, I believe the role of Teachers in inculcating the right skills at the school/college level is very high and they can play a very vital role in shaping the careers of many young people, so teachers have to transform from being a mere educators to role models and inspire students to see the BIG Picture.

If we look at a life cycle of an individual, the best phase of life is childhood where they are capable of learning anything and everything because they are still young and mouldable, in other words if teachers can ignite hunger to develop certain special skills & abilities which will act as a boosters for them to launch their career into the corporate world.
As teachers I would urge you to teach the following skills to all student community without which they are incomplete in every sense.
Inclusivity
As children we were always tough to compete among each other at school/home/neighborhood whether it is exams, sports, extra curricular activities everywhere. I think its good to be competitive, but we should not forget the need for empathy, caring for each other, social responsibility, treating everyone equal etc. If unaddressed at school level this will soon become an evil in our society; before it’s too late I feel teachers are best equipped to impart this social skill. As children we look upto teachers and we learn everything taught to us at school level. We need to understand and appreciate each others issues & problems. We have seen an era where human beings are treated like animals when slavery system existed, can we understand that every human being has the right live his/her own dignified social life. We have no rights to disown/disrespect anyone. We need to teach our children that there is nothing called upper class/middle class or lower class. I believe this class system is all in the mind.

When people transition from school to college and then to corporate world, there is nothing but TEAM WORK. It does not matter what one has studied, all are treated equally and have to work together to achieve common goals. Unlike at school/college where we have been taught to compete, the whole process transforms from competition to collaboration & team work keeping aside personal interests. There is a saying “Together Everyone Achieves More”. So my sincere request to teachers is to create greater Inclusivity among each other so that we can create a wonderful world.

Speak your Mind
Culturally we are living in a suppressed society, where hierarchy, positions over rule anything & everything that we do in our daily life. When it comes to expressing our feelings/views points and ideas, we always feel that let someone else communicate and we tend to shy away. I think the time has come for the younger generation to take centre stage and have a point of view on anything that happens around us, for this to happen children’s have to be taught that speaking your Mind is the best way to express yourself thoughts, ideas, suggestions etc. This can happen only when we expose students at school level to various social/cultural or any other issues that we are facing, so that they can apply their mind and express their thoughts. Power of thought if managed well can transform our nation into a developed nation; we need to nurture thoughts, ideas and views. Teachers please provide platform to young brigade to express themselves.

Learn from the Environment
A country with billion people having vast variety in language, culture, values, ethos has lot to offer for everyone to learn from each other. We often turn a blind eye to what happens around us and look outside for learning. I would like to emphasize on few examples which will open our eyes to learning opportunities.
Traffic Police: Let us look at the role of Traffic Police who manages traffic in Bangalore city. Bangalore today has more than 75 lakh people and in access of 20 lakh vehicles. Please educate children to learn satisfaction/service orientation from the traffic police who is paid to inhale carbon monoxide for the rest of his life that he has to stand in the middle of the road. What motivates him to serve people at the cost of his own life? Its all about being service oriented and enjoy what you do.
Ant/Bee : I am sure this is a very common example & everyone can relate better. Have you seen any supervisors managing transactions/activities of Ant/Bee’s. What motivates them to work in teams without any supervisors? Can you please teach children work with out any supervision?
I can give many more examples to drive home a point that we need to learn from the environment all the time. Let us not ridicule our society and culture which is the backbone of our existence and this will be the single most differentiator for us as a nation in the years to come. Unity, Diversity, cultural changes will drive a complete different behavior and it’s important that we our youth understand the need for co-operation in every possible way.
Questioning Skills:
The Indian education system is characterized by instructive teaching, individual work, and more focused on oneself, and a complete absence of independent thinking and the presence of unquestioned obedience to authority. By nature we do not encourage people to ask questions, because it is not accepted well in the society. It may be construed that questioning is disagreeing, not being obedient & disrespectful etc. I believe questioning is a great skill which everyone needs to develop; you cannot lead life based on assumption theories. During early days of student’s career its best if we cultivate questioning skills which will help to develop thinking ability beyond the stated and seek clarification on any given context. I request teachers to develop this rare skill in every student.

Humility/Humble –
Humility’ is not an unknown word to all of us. It’s not one of those words people will pause to look up the meaning for. We love the thought of humility & are one of those ‘great’ values we strive hard to acquire. It takes a lot to develop humility and it needs to start at an early age to be able exhibit humbleness all through our life. It’s very unfortunate that majority of young people today do not have humility/humbleness and we need to blame ourselves for what we are experiencing in today’s world. It’s important to realize that we need to know what we do not know. We need to realize that all of us do not have equal talent, but all of us need to have equal opportunity to develop competencies/skills.
It’s very important to remain humble all the time irrespective of your profile in society. As a child if we learn the importance of behavioral value system and develop these skills it will prove to be one of the biggest strengths one can aspire to acquire. Teachers, you have a great opportunity to shape the future of our society, please teach us humility & humbleness.

Developing strong Value System
Indian family system is built on strong values which have helped us to remain united all these years. Values are guiding principles in our life and they play important role in shaping our career, relationships, behaviors and our choices. Values also tell us who we are, why we are etc.. Our actions reflect the value system that we have inherited from our ancestors.
We are living in an era which witnessed some of the worst examples of corruption in the history of mankind, unethical practices to gain money, popularity, position etc. I do not think we want our generation next to live in such a society which is filled with people having questionable character, conduct and adopting convenient routes to achieve success. It’s extremely important in today’s context to teach our children positive values to influence positive behavior. Positive behavior will lead to a better society in the years to come. As teachers it’s essential to help students to influence and inculcate some of the following ethical values;
Build their Integrity
Help them listen to their conscience
Encourage them to help others
Help them become independent
Teach them how to distinguish between Right and Wrong. Doing what is Right and not what is Convenient.
There is no way to Happiness; Happiness is the only way etc…….
If we are able to teach the above values to students, we would have begun the process of creating a new society which will be free from all evils.
Having discussed overall social skills for effective learning at school level, if we can take some initiatives which will be a step forward in equipping young students with survival skills to face abundant challenges of the world. I firmly believe if teachers can play this important role of transformational role models for millions of young students across the country. There are no short cuts to achieving this goal, but to work it out one step at a time. I would like to conclude with the following lines from Upanishad which is very relevant to the topic.
You are what your deep driving desire is,
As is your desire, so is your will
As is your will, so is your act
As is your act, so is your Destiny”

Thanks you so much for this life time opportunity to share my thoughts with my beloved teachers.
About Author:
Naganagouda S Jakkanagoudar is a Associate Director of HR at MindTree Consulting Ltd, Bangalore. He has over 13 years of Industry Experience in Manufacturing & IT in the field of IR & HR. He is involved in building HR processes, systems, tools for effective Talent Engagement & Development at MindTree. He can be reached at naganagoudasj@mindtree.comAbout Author: