Date:28/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/05/28/stories/2008052850632100.htm

Back TN to introduce course in soft skills

Varsity-CII initiative to be expanded throughout the State

While the students rate high on technical skills, they are found wanting in communication or working as a part of a team or leading it – Mr Ponmudy

Our Bureau

Chennai, May 27

The Tamil Nadu Government will make a course on soft skills a part of the curriculum in colleges under the choice-based credit system coming into vogue from the current year, according to the Minister for Higher Education, Mr K. Ponmudy.

Addressing the workshop on the University-Industry consortium for employability in which Vice-Chancellors from various universities in Tamil Nadu participated, he said the objective is to improve the soft skills of the graduates to improve their employability.

The move by the State Government comes against the backdrop of concern on the low employability of the students completing their academic courses. While the students rate high on technical skills, they are wanting in soft skills like communication, working as a part of a team or leading it. The problem was worse in rural areas as compared to Chennai.

The Minister said the initiative of the University of Madras and the Confederation of Indian Industry – Southern Region, in jointly implementing a soft skill course at the post-graduate level, beginning with the training of the faculty to teach such skills to the students, would now be expanded to all the universities in the State.

Elaborating on the knowledge partnership between the CII and the University, Prof P.T. Srinivasan, Head, Department of Management Studies, University of Madras, said the concern was that less than 5 per cent of the students who appeared for a job interview were considered employable. The gap was primarily the lack of soft skills. As a part of the agreement five companies – TCS, Cognizant Technology Solutions, UST Global, Scope International and Satyam Computers – had trained over 120 teachers from 60 colleges in Chennai on soft skills development through a week-long course.

The aim was to introduce four soft skill courses such as language and communication, presentation skills, personality enrichment and managerial skills and learning a foreign language. Students could pick any four of these courses which would earn them two credits a course.

Mr B. Santhanam, Chairman, National Committee Skills, Human Resources and Industrial Relations, CII, and Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass India, said that industry estimates that there would be significant talent shortage by 2010. The demand for IT professionals is estimated at about 850,000 and for ITES-BPO over 1.4 million. But a shortage of over 500,000 trained personnel is anticipated. But over 3.5 million engineering graduates come out of colleges every year. The gap can be attributed to the lack of soft skills.

Mr Manikam Ramaswami, Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council, said that the State could develop only with better employability of the educationally qualified students. CII would work with the Government in training the faculty – “train-the-trainers.”