Aptech and Microsoft enter into an alliance 

Aptech Limited and Microsoft Corporation Pvt Ltd have entered into an alliance. Aptech is a known name in a IT education globally.

It is expected that in this partnership, Aptech would be integrating licensed Microsoft educational content into its IT related career and short-term courses. The partnership would train and certify around 1,50,000 students by 2015. The training would be given in Microsoft technologies like Windows Server 2008, Vista, Microsoft Exchange Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Virtualization and Microsoft Certifications.

There is great chasm in terms of vocational skills and qualifications even in the presence of large number of engineering colleges and institutes in our country. It is estimated that only 5% of students in India have vocational expertise as compared to US, which has 60% of vocationally qualified students, Aptech expects that this kind of strategic alliance would provide better employment opportunities for Indian students. This is a kind of collaborative growth model. 

Aptech operates in 35 emerging countries including Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Africa. It earns one third of its revenues from outside India. With Microsoft becoming part of the curriculum, would prove quite beneficial for the students as far as more job opportunities and skills are concerned.

Alison Cunard, Microsoft Learning’s general manager said, “Skill development is a key focus for us at Microsoft and we are pleased to collaborate with Aptech to deliver very tangible results,” Aptech’s educational courses would embed Microsoft course in itself. It woud be offered across 360 cities in India. The students would also be getting an added advantage of obtaining Microsoft certifications and training facilities so that they may be able to enhance their skills and employment opportunities.

Microsoft wants to explore more of such opportunities and also wants to tie up with government, social and private educational organizations in future.

There are highest number of Microsoft certified professionals in India which are around 2,00,000 in number, who are certified annually. Microsoft has tie-up with NIIT also.  

Source: http://www.ciol.com/News/News/News-Reports/Aptech-Microsoft-to-train-150000-students/146794/0/

MNCs to hire more graduates at higher pay scales 

It is anticipated by the top business schools in India that 2011 will be the best year yet for campus placements.  Recruiters are in search of the cream of management graduates from these institutes. The prospective employers are likely to be more of MNCs, who would be hiring more students even by offering higher pay packages. All this indicates that the western economies are now improving.
 
The placement process has already started at IIM-Ahmedabad. The investment baks and consulting firms are offering higher pay scale which is up to a fifth higher than the previous year.
Placements at IIM-Bangalore will start from 5th March. IIM-Calcuttta and Lucknow will follow the process.
 
Campus recruitments at the IIMs and other top B-schools are very significant in the manner as they are indicators of corporate confidence.
 
The Boston Consulting Group has broken their last year’s record by employing eight candidates each. BCG who has hired 11 graduates from IIM-A, is the top recruiter, hiring 11 IIM-A graduates. McKinsey has made 10 offers. These include the pre-placement offers to students after a two-month internship.

T Muralidharan, an IIM-A alumnus and the chairman of TMT Group says, “Information technology companies, which are offering higher-value services to clients in the US and Europe, will play a crucial role in raising the average level of pay”.


Source: Economic Times

It cos like Microsoft, Cognizant, HCL and Wipro to hire designers

  Big IT companies are now visiting design schools in order to hire graduates for designing their products, site and services by keeping in aesthetic sense in their minds. eBay and the local research laboratories of SAP and HP are also following these biggies for the same. It is expected that there would be an increase of 20-25% in the recruitment of these designers in the technology firms in the next 2-3 years. It is estimated that at present 5000 to 7000 qualified designers are working for various IT firms. These designers help the firms in their various activities like graphic designing, content writing, developing e-learning solutions etc.  


Client presentations over the web along with provision of design services, is becoming quite significant with the growth of e-commerce. The designers with their expertise are becoming instrumental in telling the story of the product to customer in the most interesting way. There is scope in mobile space also. Gaming industry too is bringing lots of job opportunities.

Not only the designers but many other non engineering graduates would also be hired by these IT companies and their number is expected to go up from 10% of the present workforce to 20-25%. This is likely to happen in companies like TCS, Wipro and HCL and Cognizant which already has 20% non engineering graduates in its workforce.

The package for a fresher could be anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh per annum.

Source: Economic Times

IIT offers online courses 



A server has been created by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras which can be used by the students to download top academic material. These materials would be free of cost. The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), which is a joint programme of IITs and IIScs and funded by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry would be assisted by the server. 

The NPTEL programme was started to increase the quality of engineering and sciences education across the country. Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal inaugurated the National Video Server. He said that it is a ''path breaking innovation''. Earlier the students used Google or Amazons for study materials but now they would have an opportunity to use India’s own server to communicate with universities.  

There would be 125 courses in web format and 135 courses in video format in the disciplines of technology, engineering and sciences in the NPTEL phase-1.They would include corresponding syllabi laid down by AICTE-approved institutions and programmes. More than 1000 UG and PG courses have been proposed in Phase-2 in various fields like engineering, technology, sciences and humanities. The programmes are likely to be completed by 2012 and would be free of cost. 

Syllabi of all universities and their courses would be covered by the same server.

20,000 jobs to be created by Cassidian 

Cassidian has opened the first ever defence oriented engineering college in Bengaluru. Cassidian is the defence and security division of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). It is expected that it would create 20,000 jobs for engineers in India in the years to come.  

EADS has its headquarters in Les Mureaux near Paris.

At present there are 60 employees which would be around 200 by 2012. This was announced by Dr Stefan Zoller during the inauguration of the centre in Begaluru.
If EADS finalizes the deal worth $11 billion with Indian Air Force, around 20,000 jobs would be there in the Indian market.  

He said that a rapid growth is seen in India and so they have decided to open this centre here. He said, “India is one of the leading nations in electronics; we have to get close to the resources to invest in the market, create capabilities and produce. It’s logical and a must”.

Cassidian is a global leader in providing civil and military solutions. Now it is looking forward towards establishing a joint venture with Larsen & Turbo (L&T) with respect to defence electronics. 

The centre aims to have a vast pool of qualified and expert engineers by capitalising on leading edge technologies, systems and products of Cassidian. The engineers would be working on developing competencies in the areas of radar systems, protection systems, avionic systems, engineering IT and 3D visual simulation, aero-structure and aerospace modelling and simulation.

Government to open up more medical colleges

The Health Ministry now plans to have new medical colleges in India. More seats would also be created in the institutes run by the government. This was announced by the Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad while attending the 31st convocation of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). 

The scheme would cost around Rs 1350 crore. This would be soon implemented and is expected to strengthen the quality of medical education in India.

Apart from this 269 new nursing colleges would also be opened to further strengthen the para-medical infrastructure. Better and improved medical facilities would thus be provided to the people in India and all kinds of communicable diseases would be eradicated soon. India also expects to become a medical hub for the cancer treatment in the years to come. 

4000 additional seats in medical colleges have been created by the medical colleges that are run by the central government. 

New curbs on non-EU students to be imposed by UK  

New restrictions are expected to be imposed by UK before visas are granted to the Indian and other non-EU students. It is being regarded as part of the Prime Minister David Cameron government's promise to lessen immigration and would also lead to reduction in visa abuse.

According to the current rules non-EU students are allowed to work for a period of two years after they complete their courses. This would be restricted now.
If there is migration of international students, it is worth 5 billion pounds to the UK economy every year.

UK’s immigration minister Damian Green in a statement said that there is an abuse of student’s visa system and now the non-EU students won’t be given permission to enter the labour market in Britain since unemployment was growing at a fast place. Allowing access to the labour market could result in putting an unnecessary strain of the graduates in their own country.  So it is likely that post study work route would be cracked soon.

He said: "The post study work route was intended to form a bridge between study and skilled work, allowing all international graduates to remain for two years after graduation. Many go into secretarial, sales, customer service and catering roles. At a time when graduate unemployment is at its highest level for seventeen years we need a more targeted approach". 

The private sector colleges were blamed for abuse of student’s visa system that did not have the necessary facilities or academic standing to offer courses. In some cases it was found that students worked at 20 different places and did not study at all. Some colleges also employed workers illegally on fake British passports.  At some other places studies altogether no regular studies took place and the students were sent on work placements.
Green also said that in June last year in New Delhi; there were forged documents of 35% of student applications that were verified by the visa section.

50% marks mandatory for admission in engineering colleges

From this year, the students would require a minimum of 50 per cent marks in their intermediate examination if they want to get admission in engineering colleges. AICTE chairman announced this recently.

Now scoring 50 per cent in group subjects (mathematics, physics and chemistry for engineering) would be mandatory from Eamcet 2011.  For SC/ST candidates this requirement would be 45%.

Till now the minimum score requirement by the state government was 35% for admissions in engineering colleges. The previous year almost 40,000 students who had scored just 35 per cent marks in the qualifying examination took admission in engineering colleges. But this could bring down the quality of the technical education. Therefore AICTE now would not, in any way, allow this 35% rule for the admission process.

The AICTE chairman also announced that new engineering colleges would be given approval to take admissions for the coming academic by May 31. Previously they were given sanction till August.

Some norms have been relaxed for colleges. The land requirements for setting up of engineering colleges have been reduced. 2.5 acres of land in cities and 10 acre of land in rural areas is required now.

The colleges that have adequate facilities according to the rule book would now be given permission. There would be a one time inspection and those colleges that do not satisfy the conditions would not be considered for rest of the year.