Andhra Pradesh   

A bounty in engineering

R. Ravikanth Reddy

EDUCATIONPLUS Oracle to provide software worth $114 million to help engineering colleges

HANDY TOOL:The package will equip engineering students to compete with the best. Photo: K.R. Deepak

The spread of engineering education in the State caught the attention of every State and the industries that matter but the quality of engineers produced by them have somehow failed to achieve similar recognition. Quality faculty and practical exposure did not match the unbridled growth of engineering institutions diluting the very concept. The gap was quite glaring.

Though a few measures have yielded some positive results in bringing the system back on rails, the Oracle India initiative is set to further strengthen the system and help it produce a few thousands of quality professionals every year.

In what could be considered as a New Year gift to budding engineers, the software giant recently announced grant of software worth $114 million to the Institute for Electronic Governance (IEG) to reach out and train engineering students while accessing the Oracle Technology Network Programme.

Under the programme, Oracle will provide tools, application software and facilitates professional development. It will also grant licences for Oracle software-Oracle 10G Database, Oracle 10G Application Server and Oracle 10G developer suite and provide faculty to the network of JKCs.

In addition, they can download the free 10G Express Edition. The training of faculty is on and the first batch has just finished the course.

It will benefit about 12,000 students in 60 colleges under the purview of Jawahar Knowledge Centres (JKCs) directly with each college getting nine crores worth assistance.

"This is a big boon for our students and will mould them into quality professionals since they get to work on realistic tools," says Ghanta Subba Rao, president of IEG.

According to Managing Director of Oracle India, Krishan Dhawan, Oracle's initiative helps students get a head start in the technology market by providing them with practical experience and hands-on knowledge of industry standard Oracle software before they enter the workforce.

With training, students are better equipped to embark on Oracle-based careers, thereby providing them with growth opportunities.

Each JKC engineering college will get an opportunity to train 200 students who will be identified by the college coordinator. They will be registered on Oracle and the registered candidates will get the package from the USA. Dr. Rao said preference would also be given to candidates of colleges that are not part of the JKC initiative.

However, students coming from these colleges should have been trained under the Campus Placement Mission taken up by the IEG.

Students getting into the project might consider themselves lucky but it is not going to be an easy task since they have to put in maximum time combining their regular course study and the project work.

"They have to put in a lot effort," agrees Dr. Subba Rao. "But it will only add value to their future," he says.

Students will get a chance to work on live projects of the State Government taken up by the IEG.

They would have to tour and interact with officials which gives them more exposure that is generally not available to all engineering graduates.

"The focus would be more on practical training and the projects would help the students apply their acquired knowledge rather than confining themselves to just theory."

The IEG also plans to reach out to other engineering colleges as well as degree colleges using Mana TV. Right now, the channel airs the soft skills programme of the IEG but now the airtime would also be used to telecast the technical skills programmes developed under the new initiative.

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