Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank talks about the education system in India and offers advise on how parents can help in the decision making process of a child's career.

As the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar needs no introduction.

Her views on education, choosing a career and growing in it, and India's job market vis-a-vis the modern economy are something that not many people are familiar with.

She spoke to Maheshwar Peri in a candid tete-a-tete

Tell us something about your childhood.

I come from a very education-oriented family.

My father was the principal of Malaviya Regional Engineering College at Jaipur, it is now called Malaviya National Institute of Technology.

I think the basic thing in him was that children must be able to get good education whatever be their circumstances. The choice of career was up to us but whatever we would decide to do we should do well in that. I was still in school in Jaipur when my father expired, leaving behind my mother and three children.

That's when my mother decided to shift to Bombay, where I would complete the rest of my education.

What made you study cost accountancy at Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI)?

I had planned to do an MBA after finishing graduation.

While I was doing my graduation I realised I had too much time at hand.

So instead of hanging around in college I thought I should do cost accountancy. That's how I came to enroll at ICWAI.

You did acquire an MBA afterwards. Right?

Yes, as I had planned.