US slowdown takes toll on IT-training sector

Aswathy V

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The US slowdown has begun to cast a pall of gloom over

the Indian IT-education industry. Several courses, that were once attractive and

were considered as passports to lucrative careers, have suddenly lost their

sheen. Several institutes are also expecting a drop in the number of students

opting for their courses in the coming months.

Product specific courses will not serve the interests of the students in the

long run as they do not provide flexibility of skills, said N A P Thampy, the

Additional Director of Software Training and Development Center (STDC) of ER

&DCI-T.

With technology-specific courses more in demand for those hoping to gain

employment abroad, students trained in a particular software product such as

Visual Basic, HTML or Java are finding their skills insufficient to stay afloat

in this competitive milieu. With IBM mainframe professionals are in big demand

after a lull, many leading companies such as L&T and TCS are using

ER&DCI-T facilities for training, he added.

But the situation has also caused considerable anxiety among students who are

now moving into multimedia courses, what with mushrooming of TV channels,

program production and animation studios in the country, said Baiju Raj Rajan of

Pentasoft Technologies Ltd.

However, Thampy says there isn't much to worry as the demand for some courses

are cyclical and normally happens in accordance to the requirement of IT

professionals in industry. He cited this to the lack of proper planning at the

national level to ensure the correct proportion of fresh candidates to suit the

requirements of industry.

Moreover, there is no common yardstick to measure the standard of education

and the course fee at the institutes, said TVK Raman, who runs an authorized

training center of IBM. Some institutes charge Rs 60,000 for an e-commerce

course while a lesser-known institute may charge anywhere between Rs 25,000 to

Rs 30,000. As a result, the skill set acquired by students from various

institutes, are not uniform, he added.

However, most of the IT training institute heads, were unanimous in their

opinion that the slow down may lead to a drop in number of students enrolling

for the courses, if the meltdown continued unabated.

The Indian IT industry has targeted the US market and has generally ignored

the domestic market which is largely lying untapped. With more IT spending at

the governmental level and domestic firms increasing their spending on IT, there

may soon be a boost in demand for software professionals. Consequently

programmers with post-graduate diplomas will find it easier to spot job

opportunities, Thampy added.

A student learning an IT course should be able to find a job easily or to

start a venture on his own, according to K R Srivatsan, Director of Indian

Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K). Hence, the

emphasis of the post graduate diploma program in IIITM-K is on developing the

talent of a potential entrepreneur, he added.