The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has signed an agreement with the University Grants Commission (UGC) to train students to take up careers in the information technology industry.
In its July-September 2005 issue of the `IT Industry Communiqué for the Academic Fraternity' made available to colleges and universities, NASSCOM said that it would join hands with the UGC to improve professional education by developing curricula, faculty, methods of teaching, and infrastructure in colleges and universities.
The aim of the joint effort was to help India maintain its leadership in the services sector with regard to information technology in the global market.
Already, the IT sector was beginning to be seriously concerned over the rapidly increasing requirement for IT and the Information Technology-Enabled Services (ITES) sectors.
According to NASSCOM, the total number of IT and ITES-Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) professionals employed in India had increased from 2.84 lakhs in 1999-2000 to over 10 lakhs in 2004-05, expanding by over 1.5 lakhs during the last year alone.
However, there was likely to be a shortage of skilled hands during the coming years.
A. Shanmugam, principal, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, said that as part of the collaboration, NASSCOM and UGC would jointly undertake a faculty development programme for upgrading the knowledge and skills of teachers, especially in areas of emerging technology and project management.
According to the NASSCOM communiqué, the association and the UGC would establish `Techno-Business Skills Development (TSD) Centres' within the premises of academic institutions in order to encourage the development of technical and business skills and knowledge-based enterprises.
These efforts would bring academic institutions, the IT industry and research facilities closer. Students would be able to work on live projects of IT companies and learn the processes, so that they could be considered for employment at a later stage.
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