Healthcare, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology will figure top among the job-providing sectors for aspirants in higher educational institutions following the spike in demand for trained professionals in this COVID-19 pandemic period, say academicians.
"Kerala can tap into the increase in demand for trained manpower in healthcare and allied sectors. There will be a huge demand for not only doctors and nurses, but also people in areas like design, production of medical equipment and in the pharmaceutical sector," pointed out Sabu Thomas, Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University.
Prof. Thomas, who headed an expert committee for formulation of niche academic programmes in Kerala’s higher education sector last year, asked higher educational institutions to step up focus on these sectors by promoting research and learning using the latest tools and technology.
Digital content
"Information Technology will be another sector that will continue to attract fresh talent. There will be an improved focus on digital content and digital pedagogy as teaching and learning has shifted to the online mode after the pandemic," he said.
Rajan Varughese, Member Secretary of the Kerala State Higher Education Council, reminded that disciplines will increasingly draw closer to one another in the wake of the emergence of more and more cross-disciplinary areas of knowledge.
"In the post-COVID higher education scenario, competence will be e-competence, outcome computational, teaching ICT-linked, evaluation online based, quality e-competency-related, access technology-dependent and equity a mere rhetoric," he said.
Stating that Kerala is now well-positioned to provide quality higher education in the present context, Prof. Varughese said that there are several new generation programmes at the UG/PG level in the universities and colleges in Kerala in areas such as Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Data Science, Financial Management etc. "This includes five-year integrated programmes started last year," he said.
Keeping up with challenges
M. V. Rajesh, Associate Professor at the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Govt. Model Engineering College in Kochi, said that Data Science would be a major sector that would require manpower in the emerging scenario.
"All engineering students would be required to gain adequate knowledge in data analytics. They need to enrol for courses along with their core branch to keep up with the challenges in the post-COVID situation," he said.
Explaining that local language computing is another key area that would require additional manpower, Prof. Rajesh said that many daily activities in this pandemic scenario had turned online.
"Sectors like robotics and automation have also witnessed a surge in demand. Some of the engineering colleges in Kerala had already started engineering programmes in these niche areas," he said.
