HYDERABAD: After Engineering and Pharmacy graduates, the US consulate wants the information of Mathematics and Physical and Life Sciences Post-graduates to be included in the Online Verification (OLIVE) database as there is an increasing number of aspirants from these disciplines applying for jobs in the United States.

Apparently candidates from these disciplines are applying for teaching jobs in the United States, which is reportedly facing shortage of quality teachers. A request to include these disciplines came from Michael.A. Ordonez, Country Coordinator for Fraud Prevention Programmes, US Consulate, Chennai. He was here recently to interact with the A.P. State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) on the Olive Database Project (ODBP) that helps the consulate to verify the authenticity of applicants' educational qualifications online.

e-tutorials

The OLIVE presently has information about professional degree holders in B.E., B.Tech, B.Pharmacy, MBA, MCA, B.Ed and Nursing courses. The shortage of Maths and Science teachers in the US reflects from the fact that some Indian companies like Career Launcher and Educomp Datamatics are offering e-tutorials to American school students.

Teachers in these companies are earning anywhere between $ 20 and $ 40 an hour.

Addition of BCA graduates was also sought by the consulate. Though the course fell out of favour a couple of years ago, BCA graduates who went on to pursue postgraduation in other disciplines like management have added value to their degrees and are now in demand.

The burgeoning applications at the consulate is an indication of that.

The consulate officials expressed satisfaction that submission of fake certificates was almost nil thanks to the Olive database. According to an APSCHE official, the consulate officers were told that they could access the websites of universities directly as some of them have incorporated the details on the site. "That can be first level verification for the use of consulate for all other courses not included in the Olive project," said an official.

As of now, details of popular courses of 10 institutions in the State are fed into the Olive project. These include Osmania, JNTU, Andhra, Kakatiya, Acharya N.G. Ranga, S.V. and S.K. Universities apart from Sri Padmavathi Mahila Vishwa Vidyalayam, NTR Health University and IIIT.

The Olive project was initiated in 1999 after the consulate noted fake degrees, particularly of MCA and Engineering when the dotcom industry was in boom. It is maintained by the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) in association with the APSCHE.

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