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.