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They work towards enhancing the capabilities of students in tune with the job market

“We trained about 6,000 students so far. Of them, 3,300 students were exposed to the recruitment process and 1,800 got selected resulting in a success rate of over 50 per cent,” said an official in charge of the Jawahar Knowledge Centres.

All those selected got jobs at reputed companies such as Satyam, Reliance, 24X7, Genpact, Wipro, ADP, ICICI, CTS, HSBC, Accenture, Infosys, Reddy Labs, Cipla, IBM and Eureka Forbes with salaries ranging from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 22,000. Some students even got positions in the software wings of these companies.

“The training at Jawahar Knowledge Centres is proving to be extremely beneficial to rural graduates. About 80 per cent of the students are from marginalized sector, majority among them being first generation literates,” claimed an official from the Commissionerate of College Education.

Jawahar Knowledge Centres were introduced a year ago in government degree colleges across the State with a view to enhancing the employment potential of young graduates by imparting soft skills and computer knowledge. This, in an attempt to cater to the Business Process Outsourcing employers who are aiming to tap the secondary job market in their vexation with employee attrition rate among engineering graduates.

In all, 29 JKCs were established across the State in two phases with at least one in each district except Vizianagaram. More extension centres are underway to cover most of the government degree colleges.

As part of the skill enhancement programme, students are given 100-hour training each in communications, soft and computer skills gearing them up for higher employability. Apart from this, English Language Labs have been set up in 75 government degree colleges across the State where listening and speaking skills would be imparted through online interaction with the Language Lab Software Platform.

The labs are set to be increased in number up to 178 by May. About 250 lecturers are being trained as a part of the English Language Programme from University of Utah, who will in turn impart training to the students in JKCs.

The latest on the platter is ‘Project Genesis’ from Infosys. The project from the software giant, implemented all over India, couples Corporate Social Responsibility with the expediency of the corporate sector by aiming to enhance the employability of undergraduate students in B and C towns.

A unique programme to train the trainers, Project Genesis imparts a two-week comprehensive training in Global Skills to select college lecturers in the State. In turn, the lecturers would carryout an 80-hour course in the colleges towards improving the language and analytical skills of the undergraduate students who are in their final year.

Global skills are foundational business skills with focus on the knowledge of communication, relationship-building and problem solving. Students who undergo this programme can hope to be employed in BPO concerns and call centres pertaining to Insurance, Banking, Public Utilities, Telecom, Legal, Transporting, Manufacture and Publishing sectors.

According to a survey, customer interaction services including call centres will have employment opportunities for 2,70,000 people by 2008. However, to undergo training under Project Genesis, the student must have passed the first and second years of graduation in a single attempt.

Training of lecturers for the current academic year will start from November while the campus drives are set to begin in December. As of now, the project is being implemented in Rajahmundry, Guntur, Khammam, Hyderabad, Anantapur and Kurnool.

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