Global information technology major IBM in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has launched a training program to enhance employability for socially and economically disadvantaged students. They will provide soft skills and career guidance to students across select colleges in Tamil Nadu.
IBM will provide a career tool kit comprising modules for soft skills training and career guidance for students spread over 180 hours on weekends.
The modules will cover basic language skills, tips to navigate interviews and to adapt to a work environment in the initial months of joining, according to Dr Chandrasekhar Sripada, Vice-President and Head, Human Resources, IBM (India and South Asia).
The module will also include a database outlining different career streams that will be made available on the college intranet in phase II of the partnership. Career opportunities across science, humanities and commerce, the scope of subjects under these necessary streams, qualifications and supplementary courses needed to join them and the opportunities they offer will be highlighted in this module. Career counsellors from the participating colleges will be given additional training to help them counsel students to choose the most suitable options.
Nearly 80 per cent of students from colleges could not find a job due to lack of soft skills. The programme will be supported by IBM's On-Demand-Community, which comprises IBM volunteers and training service providers of CII, he told newspersons.
Mr T.T. Ashok, Chairman, CII (SR), said the plan is to reach nearly 70,000 beneficiaries in the South.
It is an ambitious and challenging programme that will also involve a number of non-governmental organisations and colleges.