Aptech Limited, a global provider of IT education, and Microsoft Corporation Pvt. Ltd., have announced a strategic alliance today in Mumbai.
Under the partnership, Aptech would integrate licensed Microsoft educational content into its IT related career as well as short-term courses. The partnership aims to train and certify over 1,50,000 students by 2015 on Microsoft technologies like Windows Server 2008, Vista, Microsoft Exchange Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Virtualization and Microsoft Certifications.
“Though there are good number of engineering colleges and institutes in India, and every year high number of professionals pass out, there still exists a gap in terms of vocational skills and qualifications. Only 5 per cent students have vocational skills in India compared to 60 per cent in the US, so there’s a stronger need to have vocational skills in the country,” said Ninad Karpe, Aptech Ltd’s CEO & MD.
“There’s a strong trend among Indian students pursuing career in IT sector. Aptech has a collaborative growth model, where with such alliance our students will have more job opportunities globally and good IT skills,” Karpe added.
Aptech has operations across 35 emerging countries including Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Africa, and one third of its revenues come from outside India. Education spent is the third largest spent by families and with Microsoft becoming part of the learning curriculum, students would be highly benefited in terms of more job opportunities and skills, he informed.
According to Alison Cunard, Microsoft Learning’s general manager, this alliance would help the company in reaching out to people and educating them through software. “Skill development is a key focus for us at Microsoft and we are pleased to collaborate with Aptech to deliver very tangible results,” said Alison.
Microsoft course content will be embedded into Aptech’s educational courses and will be offered across 360 cities in India. Along with the career and short-term IT courses, the students will also get the added advantage of Microsoft certifications and trainings to enhance skills and job opportunities.
About such partnership with other education providers, Rajeev Mittal, Microsoft’s general manager – Small & Medium Enterprises said, “We will continue to explore such opportunities and reach out to people through various tie-ups with governments, social organizations and private education providers.”
“India has the highest number of Microsoft certified professionals globally and about 2,00,000 people are certified annually,” said Mittal. He informed that, in India, Microsoft has tie-up with NIIT too.
No comments:
Post a Comment