Certification course may be made mandatory. Engineering students may have to take a certification course offered by IT product and service companies mandatorily and a proposal in this regard is being put before the Vice-Chancellors of Technological Universities by the A.P. Society for Knowledge Networks (APSFKNW) that runs the Jawahar Knowledge Centres (JKCs) in engineering colleges.
The issue will come up for discussion at a meeting being planned by the APSFKNW with the JNTU Vice-Chancellors and the representatives of the industry this month. Amarnath Reddy Atmakuri, CEO of APSFKNW said that less then 5,000 students had opted for certification courses offered in the JKCs out of the 60,000 odd-students who join JKCs for skill training. “We have signed MoUs with Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP and Autodesk to offer certificate courses for engineering students but the response is not encouraging due to lack of awareness among students and the not-so encouraging attitude of the colleges,” he admitted. Interestingly, all the certification courses are offered free except the Oracle course, which is heavily subsidised for students.
Students with these courses have an edge in the job market as students get equipped with the skills required for services and products of these top companies. Moreover, these courses are recognised worldwide and companies are assured of some quality among these students. The worth of these courses outside is around Rs.3-4 lakh.
Mr. Reddy feels students are not aware of the advantage of these courses and most colleges don’t even promote it. Students realise its importance once they are rejected during the placements and then approach private institutes outside paying huge sums to learn the same. “Hence, we are proposing to make it mandatory and the view of the Vice-Chancellors will be elicited during the meeting,” he said. “Ideally, every student should take one certificate course at least during their second year and follow it up with a project work based on those skills. But, they opt for the courses in the final year and it does not serve the required purpose,” says Director of Academic Affairs, IEG, M. Chandra Sekhar. He says that programming skills are essential even for students of core branches like Electrical, Civil and Electronics as now software is used in the core area works.
Source : The Hindu