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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA: Cisco, a provider of IT services, today announced its collaboration with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to introduce the ICT curriculum in 6 selected Accredited Vocational Institutes (AVIs).
These institutes as a Cisco Local Academy will provide IT Essentials: PC hardware and networking information technology course to around 100 students each year as a part of their offerings, said a press release.
The course prepares students for networking and IT-related careers in the public and private sectors, as well as for higher education in engineering, computer science and related fields. The selected AVIs are located at Ambala, Bhopal, Balangir (Orissa), Delhi, Mumbai and Shillong and several more NIOS AVI’s are envisaged to start this course.
Cisco has imparted training to nine instructors from the above AVIs on IT Essentials: PC hardware and software at the Centre for Electronic Governance, Jaipur from January 18-23, 2010.
As a part of this initiative, Cisco would provide its free web based curriculum, online course material of the Networking Academy and 24x7 technical support to the institutes.
Lokesh Mehra, regional manager, Corporate Responsibility, Cisco - South Asia said, ‘At Cisco, we aim to enhance the employability of the youth at the grassroot level so as to enable them to harness the enormous opportunities in the ICT domain. Forging strong industry-academia partnerships is the cornerstone of our strategy aimed at bridging the existing skills gap in IT networking.”
He added that they are proud to collaborate with NIOS in its efforts to bring world-class networking education to students at various centers across the country.
Dr. S.S. Jena, chairman of NIOS said, “Through the Networking Academy program, students of accredited vocational institutions across India will receive the benefit of Internet and networking education. This will not only help students tap opportunities in the IT world but also help meet the Prime Minister’s vision of a knowledge-based economy by 2020.”