APITA to launch mentorship in North Andhra by month-end

Following encouraging response to mentorship programme in Rayalaseema, the AP Information Technology Academy (APITA) has decided to launch it in North Andhra by month-end in engineering colleges to improve employment quotient among the students.

“The response in Rayalaseema and parts of East Godavari is overwhelming. We could able to get mentors from various Fortune 500 companies with a proven track-record in their respective domain areas. The programme is mainly aimed at reviving ‘guru sishya parampara’ in the disruptive technology era,” Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor J.A. Chowdary told The Hindu .

Such interactive programmes were also launched at Anantapur, Proddatur, Kandukur, Rajamahendravaram and Kakinada. One mentor takes care of 10 to 15 students. “This will guide the students in the right direction,” he stated.

For the first mentor-mentee programme experts from Price Water House and DXE attended the programme by interacting with the students at Madanapalle in Chittoor district. After guest lectures, the selected students are networked with the mentors and are kept in touch with them regularly through the Web and groups formed on WhatsApp.

“Such interactions by domain experts help students develop good communication skills,” Mr. Chowdary said. Most of the IT and other companies visiting engineering colleges for campus placement contend that majority of the students lacked soft skills.

Demographic dividend

Admitting that the colleges were not catching up to meet the challenges posed by disruptive technologies, he said regular mentoring would help the students do well when they try for placement. “Our sole aim is to prevent demographic dividend from becoming demographic disaster,” he remarked.

APITA Additional CEO Winny Patro said the government formed the autonomous institute with an endeavour to promote constructive interactions between the industry and the academia for better employment. He said they were conducting skill development programmes and holding job melas at regular intervals and the response to ‘Look in Andhra Pradesh for Employment’ (LEAP) launched by IT Minister Nara Lokesh at Tirupati early this year.

He said they were also tying up with the educational institutions, IT Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITAAP) and other professional bodies for conducting training programmes for the benefit of the students passing out from engineering, management and science colleges.

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