NIIT announces 15th Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships

NEW DELHI: Education and training provider, NIIT has announced the 15th annual Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships (BJS) to reward meritorious college students.

Based on their performance in a competitive written test, personal interview and their Standard XII score, NIIT will award successful students fee waivers of up to 50%.

The application forms for the test are currently available at all the NIIT education centers across India. The admission test will be held on September 18, 2005.

Announcing the launch of BJS 2005, G Raghavan, President, NIIT's Individual Learning Business said, ''With IT becoming an integral part of most businesses, having adequately trained IT staff is a

key to business strategy.''

According to a Dataquest report, over the last one year, nearly 2.85 lakh IT professionals were absorbed by the industry, 45% of whom were fresh recruits.

''Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships is NIIT's effort to recognize and foster meritorious students and help meet the industry demands for trained IT manpower,'' Raghavan added.

Last year saw over 2000 companies including HCL, EDS, Wipro, Mastek, Reliance and Citibank recruit over 10,000 GNIITians.

Students who have completed their Class XII or equivalent and/or those currently pursuing graduation are eligible for the scholarships, which apply for the industry endorsed multiple track GNIIT series. Engineering and IT students can also avail scholarships under special technology programs for Engineers.

The Bhavishya Jyoti Scholarships were launched by NIIT in 1991 to enable financially challenged meritorious students to pursue a career in computers. In the last 15 years, over 200,000 students have benefited from these scholarships and launched their careers in the IT industry.