Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Panel to evaluate finishing school proposals

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government has appointed a committee to evaluate the proposals received from private groups for setting up finishing schools in the State to provide soft skills for educated youths aspiring for jobs in the Information Technology (IT) sector.

Ajay Kumar, Secretary, IT Department, told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the committee would evolve norms for approval of finishing schools, both in the private and public sectors. The committee will meet within a week to evaluate the applications received. The committee comprises officials from the IT Department, IT Mission, Higher Education Department, Technical Educat- ion Department, education institutions such as the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, and Computer Society of India, and representatives of major players in the IT sector such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), LBS and UST Global.

IT Special Secretary K.R. Jyothilal said the government had received proposals for setting up finishing schools from Globsyn based in Kolkata, the Karrox and Walchand groups based in Mumbai, and Kochi-based Mind Parlour. UST Global had already announced its plan for setting up a finishing school in the State, though it was yet to come up with a specific proposal. TKM Engineering College has announced the setting up of a finishing school in Kochi. The Institute of Human Resources Development was known to be planning to set up a finishing school in the State.

Mr. Jyothilal said the committee would look into various aspects such as job-guarantee that finishing schools could offer, the basic infrastructure required for them, the qualification of the faculty, the duration of courses and the fee structure.

N. Radhakrishnan Nair, Chief Executive Officer, Technopark, said the firm being run by former U.N. official Sashi Tharoor had sent a proposal to set up a finishing school at the Technopark. “The project will be through as soon as the space is ready.”

Dr. Ajay Kumar said finishing schools would only be one component of the mass-based training programmes that the government was planning to provide in the IT sector.

“Finishing schools are meant only for that small category of educated youth who are unable to find jobs. There will be a huge demand for trained personnel in the IT sector in the coming years in the State with IT companies evincing more interest to set up their production centres here. Our plan is to give training to about two lakh people in the IT sector in the next two years. Not all of them may get employment and even with an attrition of one lakh people we should be able to provide employment to one lakh people in the next two years,” he said.

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