Hyderabad, July 10: The classic Indian career choice of ‘doctor or engineer’ came in for scathing criticism from speakers at a seminar on new opportunities in management education here today. That limited perspective was preventing students from realising that there are now a vast number of lucrative opportunities in a whole array of new disciplines, they said.
The seminar, organised by The New Indian Express as part of its Edex initiative in collaboration with the Badruka College of Commerce, brought together several experts from diverse disciplines to showcase new opportunities in areas like pharma, hospitality, health care.
Throwing open the discussion, Dr G S Rao, director of the Badruka Institute of Foreign Trade, said the abundance of opportunities in new sectors is reflected by the presence of no less than 800 colleges offering business management courses in extremely specific sectors like tourism and hospital management. No longer was choice limited to medicine or engineering, he said.
Taking the issue further, Ravi Parthasarathy, Senior vice-president of Sarvotham Care, said India’s future growth was going to be market-led and entrepreneur-centric, which points to opportunities galore for students of today.
His own sector, pharma, is growing at 14 per cent, reacing $14 billion by the end of this year. “India’s success lies in its talent pool,’’ he said. “No less than 390 Fortune 500 companies have outsourced software work to India.’’ P Eashwar Reddy, Head, Projects, of Ramky Enviro Engineers, said India’s growth had opened up a plethora of processes that needed trained management professionals. Urban waste management, for instance, was an area that would need skilled personnel to manage the fine balance between economic growth and environmental concerns.
Prof S N Reddy, director of the Apollo Institute of Healthcare Management, said there were multiple answers to the eternal question ‘what after B.Sc.? He said students would profit much if only there would arm themselves with the awareness that there were many more options in new areas, for instance in his specialisation of healthcare management. The sector was growing at 15 per cent, and there were extremely good institutions offering courses relevant to the sector.
—Agencies