“Students always make a mad rush for engineering and medical courses without knowing their aptitude and capabilities. According to NASSCOM, 25% of ‘engineers’ remain unemployed due to a lack of skills. This highlights the importance of an aptitude test and counselling before deciding one’s career,” said Rajesh Tope, minister of higher and technical education.

Tope was interacting with a huge crowd of students and parents gathered at DNA’s career fair Eduscope on Saturday morning, at Bombay Exhibition Centre at Goregaon. Praising DNA’s effort to bring students and parents under one roof to provide aptitude tests and free career counselling before deciding their career plans, Tope asked students to take a look at other courses as well.

Tope dropped in half an hour before scheduled, and interacted with people at length. He explained the meaning of GDP to young students and added that “India’s GDP of 7% gives students’ tremendous opportunities in many other fields. So, to sustain the growth rate, the technical education department has to provide human resources for manufacturing, services and 28 sectors.”

Asking students to go for an aptitude test before joining any course after 10+2, Tope said, “In India, vocational courses are not seen as having any dignity, while western countries don’t have such biases. We need to change our mindset for such courses.”

He added that according to Prime Minister Skill Development Mission, 50% of the manpower needs to be vocationally trained.

The director of iball Neeraj Damia, and CEO of Young Buzz Pranav Gandhi were also present at the launch, along with vice president of ITM group Prof RSS Mani. Close to 1,000 students and parents attended the career fair and the four seminars on career guidance. Students appeared for career aptitude tests along with free career counselling sessions. The fair will continue on Sunday.