The Hindu Business Line : Bengal sets up IT finishing school

West Bengal has become the first State in the country to set up an IT finishing school that will facilitate the generation of industry-ready IT professionals.

The school, which will equip candidates with skills that are required in the IT job market, has been set up under the aegis of the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Ltd.

The school was formally inaugurated at Taratala here today in the presence of Dr Debesh Das, IT Minister of West Bengal, and Mr Sudarshan Roy Choudhury, West Bengal's Minister for Higher Education, among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Das said the school would focus on the "employability" of engineering students in the State. The school at Taratala, to begin with, would offer a general six-week course. A similar school would be set up at Durgapur where domain-specific training across industry verticals would be provided.

Dr Das said the course content was devised based on feedback from industry. He spoke of the need to bridge the gap between skills imparted to students by academia and those required by the industry. He also urged industry's help in providing training to faculty of the school. In his address, Mr Siddharth, West Bengal's IT Secretary, said an additional 17 million sq ft of IT space was being added in Kolkata within the next two years. With every 100 sq ft generating one job as a thumb rule, it was expected that 1,70,000 jobs would be created in the IT arena within the next two years. As such, it would be imperative to ensure that necessary facilitation was made for generating industry-ready IT professionals.

Mr Siddharth said the central IT Ministry's Committee on HRD for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan had recommended to the Planning Commission that funding mechanisms be put in place for setting up such finishing schools with a view to bridging the gap between the availability and requirement of industry-ready IT professionals.