58 million jobs to be created till 2012 

The government seems confident that it would be able to create 58 million additional jobs by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan in 2012. The reason behind this is the recovery in the farm sector and this has had a positive impact on the rural economy. All this was told by the Labour Minister recently.

Since agriculture has shown quite a positive trend, the economy is expected to grow at nine percent in this fiscal year. The unemployment would be staying in control.
The minster said, "The real position will be known after data on employment and unemployment is released by the National Sample Survey Organisation."

Two thirds of the labour is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture and the growth in this sector would definitely prove beneficial.

The gross domestic product (GDP) has climbed upto 8.9 percent each in the first two quarters.

The 10th Five Year Plan could not meet its target of creating 50 million additional jobs because manufacturing, tourism and agriculture sectors could not generate much employment

The labour ministry has put together a working draft of a new employment policy. Skilled manpower would be created which would be demanded by both public and private sectors. "The focus of the policy will be on employment generation and productivity with flexible framework of training," said the Labour Minister, Mr.Rawat.

Employment exchanges would now be modernized. It would be done with public-private partnership model. Accurate data on vacancies, skill set requirements etc would all be available online. Currently 37 million people are registered with employment exchanges.
Exchanges would also be providing counselling and would serve as a platform for employers to post their vacancies and gather information on available skill sets.

Source: The Economic Times

Indian companies out for hiring top talent 
 
The young companies, across the country are trying to hire top talent and this competition among them is growing more intense. All this is due to setting up of new businesses by the entrepreneurs. They are in competition with the large business houses and corporations.


The demand from startups has increased to 350-400 this year from 100 people last year. This was told by the head of HR department of a firm that specializes in startup services.  


There is a manifold increase in hiring by startups. The average employee headcount has risen to a median of 20 from one in the current year. 

According to an employability assessment firm based in Gurgaon, less than a fifth of engineering graduates were ready to work in small companies, with only 7.2% actively seeking such a position.
 
The reasons which make the talented professional stay away from the startup companies are their untested businesses, simple offices, minimal support, modest pay packages and no brand names. To solve all these problems the HR firms are trying to attract the professionals through the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The pinch of having almost zero brand names is felt by the startups. There is greater shortage of talented professionals more in technology firms where core team of developers is required for product development.

Another challenge faced by them is retention. They find it difficult to retain the talent for a longer period of time in the wake of huge demand and supply gap.
 
Employees also prefer to work in startups that are backed by significant risk capital investment by a prominent investor.
 
In order to lure the talent some internet startups are also ready to pay higher to retain talent.
 
All this can affect innovation in the startup ecosystem.
 
Source: Economic Times

Common entrance test for banks 

From the next year onwards there will now be a common entrance test on all India bases for those aspiring to join public sector banks. The objective behind this decision is that it would reduce recruitment time and all the hassles and complexities attached to the recruitment process. This would be beneficial both for the candidates as well as for the banks. 

The recruitment process will now take quite a less time. So the candidates won’t have to face mental tension during the waiting time after the exam. All this was told by Indian Banks Association's Chief Executive, K Ramakrishnan, to PTI. He said that there would now be a common pan-India entrance test.

The complete process at present takes almost one year right from advertisement to examination and interview stage till the stage of final recruitment.
It is planned to conduct three-four such common entrance examinations. This would be done every year beginning with 2011.

The exam will be conducted by The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and will also declare the results of the exam and give a scorecard to the candidates. The scores would be valid for up to one to one-and-a-half-years.
 

These exams will be held for clerical staff and entry-point officers.

Source: The Times of India

Govt planning to have a common central exam for school teachers

It is being thought by the government to replacing the state-level exams for recruiting school teachers. It will be substituted with a common centralized examination. All this is aimed to improve the quality of teaching in the country’s government schools. This was told by the officials of human resource development ministry.

Talks among the human resource ministry and the states and the National Council for Teacher Education will soon take place regarding this matter.

Candidates will have to appear for the proposed examination. After completing Bachelor of Education or Diploma in Education qualification the candidates can appear for this proposed examination.

This has been proposed by some state governments. A centralized system would be carried out by the state government. This would be done in order to handle the logistics effectively. Format, question bank and parameters would also be given to the state governments. 

India needs one million teachers at present. Then only can the Right to Education Act would be implemented effectively. There are around 220 million students in schools all over the country.

Not only we need teachers in large numbers but we also need quality work. So the teachers would be selected from the universe of those who cleared this entrance exam. The new proposal would be notified in a few months.  

Other areas which need attention apart from recruiting the teachers are to reduce absenteeism among teachers and improving the level of learning among the students. 

Source: Livemint

$2 billion for education, pledged by Premji

Wipro chairman Azim Premji has pledged to give about Rs 8,846 crore ($2 billion) to improve school education in India. 213 million shares would be transferred to a trust.. The transfer would be completed by December 7. This statement was given by Wipro to Bombay Stock Exchange 

This philanthropic act is expected to fund the educational activities of the Azim Premji Foundation which is dedicated to work in the area of education in rural India. Premji is India's third richest man with a net worth of $18 billion. 

A $2-billion endowment even at a conservative return of 8%- 12% is expected to generate annually returns of $160-250 million (Rs 750-1,150 crore). This will be used to run APF initiatives, including the Bangalore-based Azim Premji University. 

The university, offering post-graduate courses in education and development, will start with 200 students in 2011 and scale to 2,000 in 4-5 year. 

In a statement issued by Wipro, it was said that good education was the foremost need and requisite for building a just, equitable, humane and a sustainable society. 

Whether it is school level of education or university level, major focus would be on the underprivileged sections of the society.

AIEEE to online from next year 

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) will go online from next year just like CAT, which has also been made online since 2009.

It is an entrance test which is conducted by the CBSE for admission to Bachelor of Engineering (BE) and Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) at various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs). The test scores are also used for admission by other state-level engineering institutions.

An expert agency will conduct the online format of AIEEE from next year. The board is still indecisive about the entrance exam for Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) i.e. whether it would be conducted online or not.

It has been decided by CBSE that it would involve an outside agency for this test at national level. This will ensure its smooth working. It would be similar to the conduction of CAT which is conducted by Prometric.

Well experienced and quality oriented agencies are being invited by the board for designing and constructing large scale professional examinations on Computer-Based Testing (CBT) mode for AIEEE, 2011.

It has also been decided to merge the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) with the AIEEE from 2011. CBSE conducts AIPMT every year in order to fill up 15% of the seats in MBBS and BDS courses in various government medical as well as dental colleges against all India quota.

A combined merit list is drawn by AIEEE for different categories of engineering colleges. The online format of the AIPMT to be conducted from the next is yet to be clarified by CBSE. 

 

PG seats to be increased: MCI 

The chairperson of MCI, recently at a convocation ceremony, said that MCI wants to increase the PG seats in the medical colleges all over the country. MCI also expects to bring about absolute transparency in the system in the coming times.

The objective behind all this is to bring about greater opportunities for the students so that they are able to define their career paths more precisely. Our country needs doctors and post graduates in large numbers along with other health care professionals.

Comparing with U.S the chairperson of MCI said, “The number of seats for post graduates in the US are 24000 while for under graduates it is 16000. In India however we have 35000 seats for under graduates and 11000 seats for post graduates. We hope to change this equation."

The post graduate seats are likely to be increased to 19000. More colleges would be made to offer a post graduate degree courses. All this can provide greater opportunities for students even in rural areas. Meticulous planning, proper strategies and vision are important for the students to succeed.

With the removal of the essentiality clause now there are five times more applicants for the PG degree courses. This without compromising on quality and competence the country would be able to get better and well qualified medical professionals.  
 

Source: Times of India

CMU to provide engineering education in India

It was announced by Carnegie Mellon University and a foundation in India that a partnership would provide an undergraduate engineering course to students in India and in Pittsburgh to get a degree from CMU.

The announcement as a legislation has come up in the Indian parliament that leading US universities could now establish their campuses here in India.

With the growing of Indian economy in, now many foreign universities are thinking about strengthening their ties with us and have already expresses their interests to expand their functions here.

A graduate program in embedded systems would b provided to the students under this partnership. The courses in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering would start from June. The curriculum is created at CMU and it would be taught at India’s SSN campus in Chennai. Its faculty has been trained at CMU.

Initially there would be small classes with 10-15 students. The number of students are expected to increase to 100 within 5 years.

CMU officials said nothing about the opening of their campus here.

CMU President Jared L. Cohon said, “This will establish a new way of delivering engineering education”. He said that India’s engineers have key role in the research and scientific institutions all over the world.

Officials believe that this partnership would prove to be very beneficial and transformational to the Indian students as CMU ranks eighth in the world for engineering.

Source: Post-Gazette

Jobs in IT and banking sector will grow in the coming years, says CRISIL report

 

A report published by CRISIL Centre Economic Research says that jobs in IT and banking sector are expected to grow in the years to come. The report on the Indian education sector titled, ‘Skilling India – The Billion People Challenge’ was published by the CRISIL Centre for Economic Research. 

It is believed that the demand for labor would be growing rapidly in the next five years in industries such as IT and financials services, which are regarded as knowledge based industries. The same would be seen in construction industry, mining and healthcare. So people with vocational skills such as technicians, welders and so on would be required on a large scale.

The report also forecasts:

• 0.62 million additional jobs would be generated in the IT sector. 
• 0.25 million and 0.09 million jobs over 2011 to 2015 would be added in both public and private sector banks. 
• Labor-intensive jobs would be created in order to absorb the workforce from the agriculture industry. 
• The industrial sector would have to double its labor demand from 119 million (in 2010) to 274 million by 2030 so that share of employment from agriculture sector gets reduced.

Thus a kind of transition would be seen towards a knowledge based economy and all this would require a new generation of educated and skilled workers. There can be skill shortages which would require vocational training and there can also be unemployment in the knowledge based sector.

The report says that the three factors determining the growth of labor productivity are:

• More capital as compared to workforce 
• Technological advancement 
• Quality of workforce

It is predicted that there would be shortfall of skilled workers in India which can affect the rate at which productivity rises. Due to increase in demand, if low skilled workers are added to the workforce, the overall workforce quality and productivity growth could be affected. The skilled workers would also be needed to put in longer hours in their work.

Jobs to be outsourced to India by Bell Canada

According to a report, a telecom giant of Canada, Bell Canada which is a subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), is exploring the possibility for getting suitable vendors for outsourcing its key voice-based projects for its internet, Solo Mobility, Bell Mobility and satellite TV divisions to India.  

The headquarters of Bell Canada are in Montreal and is a leading player in wireless telecommunications. It has more than 30% of the total wireless subscribers in the country.

These projects would be outsourced by Bell Canada through it fixed payouts as part of a deal. The deal is expected to be of around $25 million to $30 million a year.  

So those looking for jobs in the area would have brighter chances of getting them after the projects have been set up.

There would largely be inbound projects which would be sent to India. It is being looked by Bell Canada wants to outsource the work to an outsourcing partner which has strong competencies in the area of  front-end work for international clients. 

The major revenue driver is wireless, which is around 50 per cent of Bell Canada's revenues. 

Bell Canada Enterprises has branched out into areas of cable TV, VoIP, IPTV, broadband internet, and wire line phones. 
 
Source: The Economic Times

Cloud computing as a “hot career” 

To deal with huge amount of data and information, cloud computing now comes as a rescue for people working in various organizations.  It is the latest technology in this area.  

Resources have to be invested by the institutions in servers to store information but not all of this data is accessed frequently. It leads to underutilization of resources and unnecessary costs. To overcome all this cloud computing is helpful. 

Remote servers are used to store and maintain data. The clients can access and use them whenever needed. The consumer only requires an internet connection to mail.

The software for the server and email management is on a ‘cloud drive’ on the internet which is managed by service providers like Yahoo and Google.

The demand for professionals is high as cloud services have a huge potential. All this was told by the executive directory (advisory) KPMG, working in the domain of cloud computing. He further said that at present our country does not have ready talent so they might command a premium.

A global IT consulting firm Zinnov says that it is expected that the global cloud computing market would be growing over $70 billion by 2015. About 3 lakh job opportunities would be created in India during the same period.

There will be impressive salary levels. At the entry-level, professional with 5-6 years of experience, can get a pay package of 12-19 lakh; while a mid-level executives can get around 20 lakh. People with 10-15 years experience can expect 30 lakh or more.

The options for upgrading of skills as limited at present. IT companies provide training to their own staff. Some certificate courses are now being offered by Aptech and NIIT. 

Source: The Times of India

India stands at 4^th place in top B-school destinations

The education prospects in India seem to be quite bright. The Times News Network reports that India stand at 4^th place in the global list of most popular destinations for management studies. 

Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) conducted a survey and came out with amazing results. In the top 10 B-Schools Canada ranks 3^rd. Israel and Spain also made surprise entries. 

The GMAC is the body that conducts GMAT which is a global B-school entrance test. Its scores are used by several top ranked business schools for admission process in management courses around the world.

Experts opine that many elite institutions have cropped up in India which is the main reason behind India's climbing up to the top fourth position. IIMs have also contributed to this success. 

Experts are of the opinion that another reason is that the return on investment in a management course is quite high as compared to the fee structure. The cost of getting management education in India is comparatively quite low as compared to the U.S and the U.K.  

It is also expected that India can soon become the most preferred destination of management studies like Singapore and Philippines in Asia. Moreover India is cheaper is as compared to its western counterparts.

For the aspiring Indian students Canada is becoming the most favourite destination for management studies. The economy there is found to be the most robust and with good job prospects and liberal visa policies.

Credit transfer system in Indian universities 

The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) is planning to come up with modalities to introduce a credit transfer system between institutions. This would be according the varsities in the US, Canada and Europe and would encourage mobility of students.

Jadavpur University’s vice-chancellor, in a meeting with AIU, said that the system of higher education in India has been overburdened as compared to the available resources here. He brought to the notice that the structural pattern of the university education in India has not been reviewed since a long period of time. There are different systems prevailing in India, as far as academic calendars and framework of curriculum is concerned.
Now the students will have an advantage to migrate from one university to another and all this has been made possible due to advancement in technology. They, no longer, would have to adhere by the some specific criteria or guidelines in order to go from university to another. They can bring back credits earned again to the previous university. This kind of system is in practice in Europe.

Those studying in various colleges of different universities in India are not allowed to move within the country. This results in debarring of the students from attending a part of the course in another university in which they want to study in order to broaden their knowledge base.

IITs and JU have the system of credit transfer like foreign universities. All this would prove beneficial for the students who come from the families where the parents have transferable jobs. In that case they would be prevented from losing one academic year. 

Source: The Times of India

India emerging as a “skill hub” for functional roles! 

There is huge availability of talent and with due to a lot of cost advantage, India is becoming a "skill hub" both for back-office jobs and global functional roles.

An executive search firm, GlobalHunt, says that in the last two-three years, there has been a 25- 35 per cent rise in global functional roles that came have to India.

Here skilled professionals are available at very competitive cost. The skills that they possess are global in nature. They are second to none in technology and analytics.

India has been given a status of a 'region status' by around 20% of the companies. We are no longer a part of Asia Pacific for them. GlobalHunt said, "Besides, 15–20 per cent of global workforces are reporting to Indian counterparts at various functions and hierarchy levels".

A large number of global companies have opened up their business centres in India which vary in size of their operations. Most of them are focussing on Indian markets.

A gradual but a growing trend is seen in this regard. Global professional interests are increasing and India based work is on rise giving the employees here better career opportunities. 

 
Source: The Hindustan Times.

Google plans to hire 300 people in India

Google Inc has recently announced that it plans to hire 300 people as it wants to double its engineering headcount in India. All this is being done to strengthen cloud computing research and development centre present in Hyderabad, to make it largest in the world.
300 engineers are to be recruited in couple of years. Google plans to increase its presence in India with focus on cloud computing. 300 are already working in Hyderabad and Bangalore. Cloud computing is web-based processing, in which shared resources, software, and information are given to computers and other devices such as smart phones when they are demanded over the Internet.

2,000 employees are already working for Google in India. Hyderabad engineering centre will be focussing on cloud computing whereas the engineering centre in Bangalore is working on cloud computing along with search, ads, maps and news. All the work that is being done is regarded as global in nature the technology being developed in these centre are meant for global business.

There are already cloud computing centres owned by Google in Mountain View in California and New York. But the one at Hyderabad is regarded as the largest in terms of the number of engineers working here.

A Google official said that India was a great market for cloud computing as it was the most price sensitive. There is excitement among small and medium business because cloud computing ensures efficiency and better utilization of resources. There are 100,000 business in India which are using technologies of Google’s cloud computing.

In all there are three million customers in cloud computing all over the world.

Source: The Economic Times

Marriot International plans to hire 8000 employees in India

8000 people would be hired in next years as Marriott International Inc. plans to open 100 hotels in India in five years. At present there are 11 hotels but it would be bringing its seven leading brands, including Ritz-Carlton to India. All this is being done in order to tap the opportunity presented by a rapidly growing economy.

The expansion would be through management contracts.

Many other top international hospitality firms such as Carlson, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt Corp., Inter Continental Hotel Group Plc, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., Hilton Worldwide and Accor SA are also planning to set up more hotels in India. More capacity is also being added by Indian firms ITC Ltd, Hotel Leela Ventures Ltd and Indian Hotel Co. Ltd.

Foreign as well as domestic travellers would be benefited by the growth of international and national hospitality industry in India besides creating employment opportunities for many Indians.

Marriot International are getting help from the real estate developers in setting up of there coming up projects. Launching of 7 new hotels was announced recently while 23 are under construction and they are expected to start operating from 2013.

Franchises hotels under the Marriott are JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Autograph Collection, Renaissance Hotels, Residence Inn, Courtyard, TownePlace Suites, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites and Bvlgari brands.

The Vice President and Chief Operating officer was quite thrilled when he said, ”India has the second largest hotel development pipeline in Asia, and is expected to double the number of branded hotel rooms over the next three years to approximately 120,000”. He was of the opinion that India comes among the top 5 markets in terms of the number of hotels being developed.

 
Source: Livemint

Rs 40 Lakh package to students of BITS Pilani  

The graduates of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani have been offered the highest pay package this year. All records have been broken by eight graduating students of the institute. They have been offered Rs 40 lakh per annum each.

They are hired by Schlumberger, the world's leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions to customers working in the oil and gas. Facebook, a social networking site would also be hiring some more students with an expected annual package of Rs 38.5 lakhs.

The final round of interviews would be conducted this week of the shorlisted students.

300 of 400 students of batch 2011 in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes have already got jobs reputed companies. Pay package of Rs 12.8 lakh has been D E Shaw, a global investment and technology company based in New York. It is the highest domestic package.

25% of the batch students i.e. seventy-five students currently have job offers with a compensation of more than Rs 9 lakh. Thus many renowned national and international companies have provided placements to the students from BITS Pilani, which is one of its greatest achievements. It is believed that all this has been made possible with the support of the alumni network among the companies. 

An amazing fact coming to the surface level out of all this is that the U.S companies like Yahoo, Google, E-bay, Facebook are creating jobs for Indian students abroad at the time when the U.S President was busy asking for jobs for his countrymen here in India.
55 companies have registered in Pilani for recruitment and 20 are waiting to visit the campus. 100% placements are expected to be achieved by the end of November 2010.

Source: TOI

Indian students to be attracted by Canadian universities

Presidents of 15 Canadian universities are on a seven-day visit to India. The objective is to attract students from India which is considered as the second fastest growing nation in the world.

The two countries have signed a memorandum of understanding on higher education during the Prime Minister’s visit there last year. This is regarded as the biggest mission by Canadian educational institutions since then. It is estimated that more than 150,000 Indian students go abroad for higher education every year but only 3000 students go to Canada for the purpose of higher education. Only a fraction of Indian students got enrolled in the universities of Canada last year.

The foreign students pay more than $15,000 as fees which can amount to around $6.5 billion. This means the same amount can be pumped into the Canadian economy if more and more students get enrolled in their universities.

The Canadian education mission would be travelling to Pune and Delhi. All this has been organized by Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).  The meetings would be held with the administrators of the educational institutions of public and private sector. All this is expected to create special ties between the two nations.  

There would be roundtable with Indian university presidents Human Resource minister Mr Kapil Sibal and his Canadian counterpart would be attending the roundtable.  
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) are also organizing the higher education summit and this Canadian mission would also participate in it.

Before leaving for India, AUCC president Paul Davidson said, “This mission is a way for us to get to know India and its needs more deeply - and to make sure that when Indians think of research and higher education, they think of us.”


He also said that the educators and business people should be aware that Canadian universities would like to build partnerships with Indian universities. All this can strengthen the bonds between the countries apart from bringing about advancement in research collaborations.



Source: EconomicTimes 

2 Top Indian Institutes Become Partners in Leadership Training with Yale University

It was announced by the Yale University last month that a partnership would be formed with two of India's top management and engineering institutes. It would be done to train Indian university leaders on the practices in academic administration and institutional management in the United States. Its partners would be the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, in the north, and the Indian Institute of Management in Kozhikode, in the south.
The Indian government would be financing the project with $1-million.


India's government wants to modernize the higher-education system here as it not able to meet the country's growing educational demands. Kapil Sibal, the minister in charge of higher education, has been trying to reform our ongoing educational system and partnership with foreign universities would help in achieving the objective.


The Director of the institute in Kanpur endorsed the move and said that there would be a need foe high quality academic leadership would be critical in the wake of expansion of the educational system here. He appreciated the work done by the Yale University in this area. The training programs are expected be open to public-university administrators from all parts of India.


The program would start from January and would be developed by the three institutions. It is a five-year arrangement which will be based in two Centres of Excellence for Academic Leadership and would be financed by the education ministry.


There would be research on higher education by these three institutions. Workshops and seminars would be organized in areas of academic administration and leadership. All this would aim at supporting the expansion of Indian higher education.


Yale has pledged $30 million two years back in order to develop deeper ties with India by offering more courses and faculty expertise, expansion of recruitment of students and partnership in research. demonstrated an interest in working in India. Two years ago, the university pledged $30-million from its endowment to develop deeper ties to India through more course offerings and faculty expertise, expanded student recruitment and research partnerships. This amount has increased to $75 million now.


There is also a possibility of developing 14 “Innovation Universities” by the Yale University in India.
Source: Chronicle.com

Avenues for the opening of foreign universities coming up with Obama’s visit


Indian students might be getting the advantage of obtaining a degree from an American university now as many U.S university officials are also visiting India along with the U.S President Obama. These universities might get permission from Indian government to set up their bases in India.


Representation from Boston University, Arizona State University and Rugers University are accompanying President Obama. Boston University is ranked 56 and Rutgers University is ranked 64 on the on the National Universities Ranking on U.S. News.


Though a “foreign university bill” has been passed in March 2010 which allowed the foreign universities to set up their campuses in India and foreign direct investment has also been allowed here but these institutions are not allowed to grant their degrees here.


India has the largest student population and a severe shortage of educational institutions, the opening up of these universities would definitely prove to be quite beneficial. IIMs and IITs are the top most institutions here but have limited amount of seats which deprive many students of such a kind of quality educational facility.


Opening of foreign universities is expected to bridge this demand and supply gap.


According to statistics there is a need of about 600 universities and 35,000 more colleges over the 12 years to enrol 30 percent of its potential students in the country.


It is expected that quality institutes would be drawn to the huge population and revenue models.


For-profit institutions like Apollo Group and DeVry Inc are looking towards the Indian markets for acquisitions in higher education sector here.


Source: IBTimes.com