IBM's training programme for the socially-challenged

Updated on: Tuesday, September 27, 2011

IBM launched a training programme last week in co-ordination with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Southern Region, to enhance employability of socially and economically disadvantaged students.

Chandrasekhar Sripada, Vice-President and Head, Human Resources, IBM (India and South Asia), said his company, a century-old global organisation, had a “deep commitment” to support causes in the interest of the community in a pro-active manner, ahead of time and without waiting for any law. .It had always been trying to integrate business objectives with national agenda. “Using our core strength technology, we are trying to make world smarter.”

As his organisation believed in “teaching fishing instead of distributing fish,” it had been trying to impart skills to the socially challenged in a bid to build a sustainable future for them. “IBM strongly believes that its strength of technology could be leveraged to provide enduring, long-lasting solutions,” he said.

Its training programme would guide students regarding career options available both in the government and the non-government sectors. Besides, as 80 per cent of the students were poor in soft-skills, a 180-hour training module had also been launched.

Soft skills proved to be the key differentiator in recruitments, he pointed out. At present, it had tied up with a handful of colleges in Chennai and planned to extend the training through a corp of volunteers at its disposal. “We want to do much more and would extend the programme to rural institutions as well,” Mr. Sripada said.

T.T. Ashok, chairman, CII, Southern Region, said one of the thrust areas of CII was to bring socially challenged communities such as the scheduled castes and tribes into the mainstream.

All the benefits of development that India had been boasting of had missed out quite a chunk of this population. In a bid to ensure inclusive growth, the CII had been pitching for extending them training so as to improve their employability.

Already it had extended skill training to 13,851 youth against its target of 15,000 in southern region utilising the services of its members in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry.

The CII had formulated a code of conduct according to which its members would not practise any type of discrimination in employment, irrespective of the caste, creed or religion and a substantial number of its members had subscribed to it.

Besides, 15 per cent of the employees of the companies, who were members of the CII southern region, belonged to SC/ST communities. In addition, the CII had started extending scholarships also, he said.

IBM's training programme for the socially-challenged

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