Mysuru: According to National Skill Development Corporation report, the estimated job creation in insurance and banking sectors will be 20 lakh by 2020 said Sushobhan Sarkar, Director, National Insurance Academy, Pune.
Speaking during the national level seminar on ‘Insurance Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities ‘ and felicitation to Micro Insurance Awareness and Enrollment Mission (MAEM) volunteers organized by Department of Studies in Commerce, Manasagangotri, UOM at Rani Bahadur Auditorium here on Monday he said, “The Confederation of Indian Industry has estimated a need of at least 21 lakh insurance education employees by 2025 and has indicated a manpower requirement of 30 lakh in the insurance sector by 2030. There will be a huge requirement of insurance professionals in the country. Employment in insurance industry can be divided into Direct and indirect. Under direct employment, candidates are directly employed by the insurance companies. Currently there are 53 insurance companies in the country who have given direct employment to 3.49 lakh persons. In the indirect employment, agents, corporate agents, brokers, IMF and Micro insurance agents and village level entrepreneurs will be employed. There will be employment generation in rural areas. The total number of agents according to 2013-14 stats was about 27 lakh,” he said.
“The insurance industry needs a wide array of skills starting from business procuring at the field level to strategy formulations and execution at the highest level. At the entry level, those who are having skills in marketing, communication and presentation skills, underwriting, accounting , information technology, actuarial science risk management, law, general administration, engineering are eligible, while for specialists position some of the skills have to be obtained from specialized institutions. MBA or PGDBM type of program where core management principles are taught along with a specialization or emphasis on insurance is helpful. Apart from this industry, academia collaboration is a must for a course on insurance to have proper content and curriculum design to keep it relevant. Our University and regulatory system for education will have to think of appointing retired officials from insurance industry on contractual basis to tide over this difficulty and keep insurance education vibrant and relevant both from students point of view as well as that of potential employees and effectively meet the big manpower demand of the insurance industry for the next decade and a half,” added Sarkar.
KS Rangappa who also spoke on the occasion said, “The ‘Ivory tower’ image of the University needs to change. The larger role of a public university is to prepare tomorrow’s leaders and contribute to the quality of life of Indian communities through civic engagements which means effective mechanism to promote the spirit of learning to serve and serving to learn amongst the student community. When we launched Micro insurance program on September 4 last year, the public started asking me, how I could adopt 100 villages for this purpose? India is the leading country having unveiled a range of micro insurance programs for rural masses, but Micro insurance program in the country has still a long way to go with more than 80 percent of rural populace remaining uninsured. So therefore it is in this back ground, a university can play vital role in educating the masses, particularly rural communities about the need and importance of insurance.
3000 villagers enrolled
The commerce department took out the Micro insurance awareness enrolment mission on September 24 last year. Under this program, University of Mysore adopted 100 villages in four districts, Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan which come under purview of UOM. About 40 teaching facilities and 200 student volunteers from the department managed to enroll 3000 villagers.
