The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Efforts to make graduates "industry-ready" needed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 23, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Efforts to make graduates "industry-ready" needed

Staff Reporter

"Only a section of them can meet needs of global customers" "Course material should be meet industry needs"

CHENNAI: B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman, Satyam Computer Services Limited, on Sunday called for initiatives to make the hundreds of thousands of youth graduating from colleges "industry-ready."

This is necessary because only one-fourth of those passing out, including 500,000 engineering graduates, are "in a position to take up the responsibility of meeting the requirements of global customers" in the services sector, he said, addressing the Madras Management Association (MMA) here.

In an interactive session, after a lecture organised by the MMA on `India's time has come', Mr. Raju said the academia and the course material should be better aligned with the need of the industry.

As for the Centre's proposal to introduce reservation in the private sector, he said success in the services sector was all about being innovative. Experience showed that innovation had to do less with intellect and more with discipline.

Stressing the need to "demystify knowledge," he said that in the scenario in which job opportunities were less than the demand, "certain standards should be laid down." Those meeting the criteria should be given the chance.

Mr. Raju described human resources as the largest asset of the country.

"The quality of our minds is as good as the quality of minds in developed countries." One example is the quality of services rendered by a village cooperative to which Satyam Computer Services Limited outsource some of its internal work. The service level agreements (in the outsourcing contract) were significantly higher. The company's decision to outsource from the cooperative was part of its corporate social responsibility and to cut cost.

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