case study
Gearing for an Economic Boom in the North East The North-East India, of late, is being seen as a fertile recruitment ground for IT and BPO service providers. The government and private players are using this opportunity to provide relevant skills training to the population. Public – Private Partnerships are crucial to these developments, with companies willing to invest in training requirements By Sheena Joseph
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he Government of Megahalya signed a MoU with Symantec, a foreign franchise, to develop and implement IT skills development and IT educational programmes in the state. The MoU is aimed at enhancing the skill requirements of IT graduates, besides maintaining a database of certified participants, that can feed into employment initiatives. The focus is to take a holistic skill development approach, understand industry requirements and create specific development initiatives. The training programme is being offered by the state government free of cost. The state government has been encouraging and attempting to approach IT and ITES companies to invest in the state, with the objectives of creating IT employment, improving IT infrastructure
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and using IT as a catalyst to fuel economy in other industries. The state government has also asked the company to conduct job fairs in Shillong so that students can be provided placements in top firms after the completion of the programme. Around 2000 students will be benefited in the first phase of the programme. According to the agreement Symantec is responsible for implementing education services in the State thereby running a training program to train about 2000 candidates in its first phase. This will help in creating employment opportunities for candidates both inside and outside the state. Symantec has partnered with ETPL (India) to compile sample profiles of graduates from different disciplines and establish skill
requirement to develop IT orientation. Dale Smith, Senior Director of Education Services, APJ, Symantec elaborates on the details of the program. According to her, Symantec’s program imbibes good quality orientation, superior process delivery and a keen emphasis on information availability and security on every trained student for higher job achievement. Also, by providing trained professionals to the industry the state will be able to give significant and sustained cost advantage, attributed to the wide differential in wage-costs and productivity gains achieved by firms in sourcing from Meghalaya. Another firm to have taken this attempt forward is Genpact, one of the country’s top BPO employers. Tata Consultancy Services and 24/7 Cus-