Teaching in India should move beyond reading, writing and counting: Tata Sons Chairman

Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran on Monday said Indian teaching system should move beyond just reading, writing and counting.

"This is what our parents taught; our teachers taught... going on for generations. And actually thinking, collaboration, digital, using software is far easier to teach than reading, writing and counting. We must be teaching that," said Chandrasekaran.

The Tata Sons Chairman reflected upon multiple topics during the launch of his book "Bridgital Nation", written in collaboration with Roopa Purushothaman.

He said 77 per cent of India's economy is informal, depriving workers in such a setup from earning a better salary.

To drive this point home, Chandrasekaran cited the example of his own car driver's salary compared to drivers working in the informal economy and the huge disparity.

Not only low salary, he said the informal economy set up also its workers disadvantaged by not exposing them to valuable training.

"Most of the jobs are in the informal economy. Many of the jobs are not registered, so that we don't provide training," he said, adding that one of the reasons for the tech industry to thrive in India is because of training.

"We know, the single most thing that made the tech industry successful in this country. What is it? Training. People in training. Nothing else, what else did we do. Fundamentally, it is believing in people and training, training, training," asserted Chandrasekaran.

"If you ask me, one fundamental thing we need to do is to train people. For that you have got to get people into formal jobs. Then the moment you train, then you can bring technology," he said.