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Severe shortfall on IT jobs due to non-technical engineers

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: According to Nasscom, about 450,000 students graduate with engineering degree each year across the country, but still the report estimates a IT job shortfall of 234,000 graduates is expected by 2009. In this connection, IIIT-B, in collaboration with Radix Learning has launched Yogyata, a professional certification program to enhance employment for the IT industry.

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publive-imageIt is estimated that the top 15 IT companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS absorb about 100,000 of these engineering graduates while the rest of the IT companies take in about 150,000 to 170,000, but still 1/3 of the other graduates do not find employment easily. Presently, the shortfall for IT jobs in India is about 135,000 to 140,000.

Talking to CIOL, Prof Sadagopan, director of IIIT-B said, “the graduates from top engineering colleges like IITs and NIITs get absorbed easily but when it comes to students from colleges in Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns in India, because of the lack of technology skills, industry is finding it hard to absorb these students. In fact, IT education in India’s smaller towns is just not happening as anticipated earlier.”

However, Yogyata will be offered as a blended-learning program that includes a right mix of several learning methodologies including face-to-face classroom lectures, web-based, self-learning courseware, synchronous and asynchronous online mentoring and collaborating learning. “The Yogyata curriculum has been designed based on inputs from leading IT companies based on their individual induction training programs for application development. The highlight is the guarantee of jobs to all those that complete the certification with A or B grades,” says KRV Subramanian, CEO of Radix Learning.

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The program moves away from traditional educational dynamics in which the professor dispenses knowledge and students passively expose the students to decision and tasks that developers confront daily. In doing so, the students not only hone their technical skills but also learn to communicate effectively and work together as a team, adds Subramanian.

The first batch starts in September 2008, will target students from various engineering colleges across Karnataka. Successive batches are planned from October onwards with focus in the other three southern states – Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Kerala. Beyond the Application Development track, there are plans to extent the program to other specialized tracks including Quality Assurance and Testing, IT Infrastructure Administration etc.

The admissions are open to persons who are completed any bachelor degree in engineering or who are at least in the third year of their engineering program. “Major IT companies wants us to customize the course as per their requirement and will absorb the students on successful completion of the course. Our blended-learning methodology offers the flexibility for learners to enroll in the program while in college and will undergo a comprehensive final assessment conducted by IIIT-B, which would be the basis for award of the ‘Professional Certificate’, remarks Prof S. Ramani, former director of HP Labs India and earlier director of NCST, Mumbai.