Kerala: Genpact Training Goes Waste
By ITBangbug

An ambitious project by the Kerala government to make the Art & Science graduates in the state employable in the IT & ITES industry has failed to take off.  Kerala has over a lakh of students graduating from 186 Arts & Science colleges but over the last few years, studies by the State IT Mission have shown that only a minuscule percentage (0.03%) of them were being recruited by  the IT & ITES industry. This dismal performance was mainly attributed to poor communication skills.

The IT Mission was entrusted the task of training the undergraduates, especially the final year students in soft skills. In January this year, the IT Mission selected a group of Soft Skill trainers across the state and roped in the leading BPO, Genpact, for their training. Genpact trained the empanelled trainers free in lieu for first right of hiring the trained students from colleges through campus recruitments. An 80 hour module comprising of Spoken English, Grammar, Interview and Group Discussion skills, something similar to the curriculum of a Finishing School was developed. As this training programme is subsidised by the state government, students were to pay only Rs.500 for this course.

The project was to start in the colleges of Thiruvananthapuram in February but got postponed to April which also got deferred. End of academic year activities, study holidays and annual exams were cited as the reasons then. But even now it has not started and that final year batch has passed out. According to PR Risha, Coordinator, IT Mission, the project could not start due to the poor response from colleges. She feels the college authorities should have taken more interest in such training programmes. Even though the IT Mission is under the Dept. of Information Technology, Govt. of Kerala, the organisation does not have any enforcement authority and can act only as an advisory body. Vinod, one of the empanelled trainers squarely put the blame on IT Mission for inadequately promoting the programme which has tremendous potential to change the fortunes of these graduates.

Now that the new academic year has begun, the IT Mission is hoping that the training programme will take off at least by August for the new batch of final years. The students cannot afford to miss this golden opportunity.