A two-day conference of vice-chancellors of Central universities and directors of institutions of national importance concluded here on Wednesday with Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan calling on teachers to prepare the students to become job-givers, and not job-seekers only.

Pointing out that the age of incremental change was gone, Pradhan called upon higher educational institutes to target exponential growth toward building a future-ready workforce.

Speaking about the challenges and opportunities in the new world propelled by technology, he said that India has shown its technological prowess in various initiatives like UPI, Direct Benefit Transfer and Aadhar.

As regards entrepreneurship, the minister mentioned the rising number of unicorns in the country as an indicator of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. He also spoke about various initiatives taken by the government in the realm of digital education and called for leveraging technology to further decolonise education.

He also called for further strengthening the alumni network and more efforts in the area of internationalisation of education in India, including the Study in India programme.

In different sessions, the conference deliberated on various topics such as — International rankings of Higher Education Institutions; collaboration between Academia-Industry and policymakers; Integrating School, Higher and Vocational education; Education, and Research in emerging and disruptive technologies.