Govt to set up finishing schools for graduates

The Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to start finishing schools which would impart skills to the graduates while also brushing-up their knowledge of core subjects.

These finishing schools would be initially set up in the seven National Institutes of Technology at Jaipur, Kurukshetra, Durgapur, Warangal, Trichy, Kozhikode and Surathkal and at Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Utilising the existing resources, each of these institutes would conduct the finishing school courses for eight to ten weeks.

This year the programme, to be organised from May to July would be exclusively for engineering graduates from IT sector who have finished their courses but are unemployed.

Earlier, chambers like National Association of Software and Services Companies had raised the issue of employability of engineering graduates in India. Kiran Karnik, President NASSCOM had said, "Apart from a small fraction of the engineering students, there is a huge deficit of talent in terms the industry demands. This is a crisis in our education system, when the whole world is looking for talent from India."

Minister of State for HRD, D Purandeswari who shared his view said that the working group constituted by the Ministry of HRD examined the issues raised and "had recommended such finishing schools to enhance the employability of such students."

The course will focus on IT sector and would groom the graduates in accordance with the IT-ITeS sector requirements.

Graduates of various engineering colleges of that particular region would be covered in each of these seven NITs and the IIT, Officials in the HRD Ministry said.