The Nasscom Sector Skills Council (SSC) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with NIIT to train one lakh students over the next three years for business/ knowledge process outsourcing and legal process outsourcing jobs.

The joint initiative has introduced two courses -- Foundation Skills in IT (FSIT) for engineering graduates and Global Business Foundation Skills (GBFS) for graduates of all streams and aims to train 30,000 students in the first year.

The courses have been designed and developed by the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council of Nasscom and the achievement levels are certified through the Nasscom Assessment of Competence-Technology.

Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Accenture, Genpact, IBM, Dell, Cognizant, Convergys and Microsoft are part of the Nasscom Skills Council.

" The Indian IT-business process management industry has been working round-the-clock to build a favourable environment in preparing this talent pool and making them industry-ready. This initiative is a step forward in the same direction and is aimed to scale the quality capacity of our graduates," Som Mittal, President, Nasscom said.

Both the programmes are of a duration of 120 hours each and cover topics ranging from on technology to soft skills and professional skills and project management.

Most of the topics covered are applicable to multiple industries and although all students are eligible to take part in the programme, it is best suited for engineering students studying in third year and final year, he said.

“NIIT’s training expertise together with Nasscom’s industry insights will empower college students across India,” Rajendra Singh Pawar, Chairman, NIIT said.

ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in