IIIT-Bengaluru to hone 10,000 students with software skills

Bengaluru: State-run International Institute of Information Technology-Bengaluru (IIIT-B) on Wednesday said it is starting a post-graduate diploma programme to train about 10,000 students and engineers in smart software skills.

"The 11-month programme will provide hands-on learning to students and working professionals to hone their software skills required by a rapidly changing industry," said IIIT-B in a statement here.

Leading online higher education firm UpGrad, co-founded by entrepreneurs Ronnie Screwvala and Mayank Kumar, will partner with the reputed institute to create the human capital required for the resilient IT industry.

"We are seeing a huge change in the IT industry from automation, digital and data transforming many roles. Although many fear that this will lead to job losses, I am of the opinion that these changes bring in new types of opportunities," said IIIT-B Director S. Sadagopan in the statement.

As the programmers have to be thorough with core computer science concepts and software engineering principles, the programme will give them product focus for jobs that will be required in the near future.

"In view of the technology changes and increasing automation, about 30 per cent or one-million jobs in the Indian IT sector face lay-off. Hence, we need to reposition them to avoid net loss of jobs in the resilient sector," said Screwvala and Kumar in the statement.

As digital and data provide huge opportunity for growth in the IT sector, software developers who leverage open source technologies, Application Programme Interface micro services and software as a service will have to show product centric thinking than services-centric thinking.

"Besides training professionals on software engineering, the programme will focus on developing creative problem-solving and critical thinking by enabling the students to grasp new skills and adapt to the changing technology era," it said.

According to a recent study by 'Aspiring Mind', students of computer science and IT-related fields don't meet industry requirements and 95 per cent of engineering graduates are not suited for software development.

"There is an acute shortage of good teachers in most engineering colleges in the country. As a result, majority of students don't have access to quality education at the post-graduate level," said Sadagopan.

While 1.5 lakh students apply for Masters every year, many of them can't go on due to limited seats in the top colleges and the programme is meant to address this shortage, the statement said.