Zensar Launches First Ever Employability Skills Development Program : Pune, India

A program to make 500 students in Maharashtra IT industry ready in Year 1 Zensar Technologies and Zensar Foundation today announced the launch of the first ever Employability Skills Development (ESD) Program for training of fresh graduates towards better readiness for the IT industry, at no cost to the student. Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman and CEO, Zensar Technologies Ltd and Trustee of the Zensar Foundation at the occasion said, “I am pleased to announce the Employability Skills Development (ESD) Programme which aims to address a pertinent concern of the Industry and fresh engineering graduates today. Each year more than 80% of the jobs available for fresh engineers are created by the IT industry. Only 20% of those are fulfilled by engineering graduates who have industry ready talent, because the rest severely lack the skills required for the jobs that are available to them. Zensar’s Employability Skills Development (ESD) Program is an initiative to address this talent deficit in our state and we are hopeful that this will be a role model program for the industry. In the first year, we plan to offer the Employability Skills Development program in 30+ colleges across India covering more than 500 students.” Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is also the Chairman of NASSCOM Foundation and leads many industry wide initiatives of change in the society through the Foundation including the recently announced National Digital Literacy Mission. Pushpall Kapadia, VP and Head of Organisation Excellence Pragramme at Zensar Technologies said, “NASSCOM reports that only a quarter of engineering graduates are employable by the IT/ITES industry, and even those graduates, undergo a rigorous training program of 3-6 months with their employers after they join the companies. NASSCOM data suggests that the IT industry spends close to USD 0.75 Billion annually on training fresh campus graduates.” At the launch of the EDC she said, “This Employability Skills Development Program from the Zensar Foundation will be conducted at a state-of-the-art facility on the Zensar premises though the Employability Skills Development (ESD) Centre where the program would render Skills Development training for fresh graduates in partnership with the academia and training partners. The focus of the programme will be to enhance technical, functional and soft skills of fresh graduates for effective working in the IT industry. The program has been designed based on decades of experience that Zensar has with global clientele and through a robust training partner ecosystem.” Prof Goraksh Girje Chairman Board of Studies IT at the University of Pune and Principal, PVG college of engineering Pune said, "When students are quizzed on the various technologies today and what makes one better than the other they are quite ready with all the details, but when you ask the same students to design solutions on their own, or talk about the application of the technology only a handful would be able to attempt it with success. The Employability Skills Development Programme promises to address bridging this knowledge gap so our students can make the connect to the industry relevance of all the theory they imbibe at college.” Through this program, Zensar will extensively deploy its training courseware, around real project scenarios that have been developed and practiced in the Industry keeping the training relevant for the students as well as the Industry they are getting ready for.