Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Govt.'s ITES policy on right track

By R. Ravikanth Reddy

HYDERABAD May 30 . The Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) policy of the Government, framed to generate employment in the State in the burgeoning ITES sector seems to be going in the right direction with several companies evincing keen interest among the students trained exclusively to cater to their needs.

More than 90 per cent of the students of the pilot project launched by the Institute for ITES Training, attached to the A.P. State Council for Higher Education, were placed in companies like GE, HSBC and Nova Solutions with a starting salary of Rs. 7,000. Another 160 students are currently undergoing training in Nizam College and Government Women's College, Begumpet.

A special course was designed to train the students in what the Government describes "Sunrise sector'' as a part of the ITES policy of the Government. Students during their 8-week training go through various exercises to improve their communication skills, English language skills and overall personality to deal with the challenges in the job.

``We are getting enquiries from the companies and they are also being involved in the process to finetune students as per their needs," points out Prof. C. Subba Rao, Chairman, APSCHE. Their assignments also include listening to BBC radio service and reading English newspapers so as to make them understand the nitty-gritty of the accent and the language.

Some companies have even examined the methods followed to train students by personally attending the training sessions. Industries would be benefited as they could cut down costs for searching for the right candidates.

Though the programme is now confined to the twin cities, the APSCHE is planning to offer similar training programmes in centres like Vishakapatnam and other districts where such employment is likely to be available. "The Government ITES policy expects millions of jobs in this sector in the next few years and it wants the State to capture a major portion of these jobs. Ours is the only State to have taken initiative to train students for this sector,'' says. Prof. Subba Rao.

The APSCHE also plans to accredit private institutes offering such training and parameters to accredit them are being evolved. However, the Institute for ITES Training is now charging Rs. 3,500 while the private institutes charge nearly Rs. 15,000 for similar training.

Expecting good response from graduates and given the vast scope for employment opportunities in this sector, APSCHE is now working towards designing a Graduate Employability Test (GET) on the model of tests like TOEFL. "Scores in this test would indicate a student's capability and companies can consider these scores for their recruitment,'' Prof. Rao says.

Based on the performance of students in GET, they would be graded in several layers. Toppers can be considered by the companies for recruitment without any training while the rest can acquire training based on their shortcomings. All the new policies with regard to ITES are likely to be announced at the NASSCOM meeting to be held on June 10 and 11.

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