Karnataka government, corporates to develop a joint syllabus for skilling students

Bengaluru: IT-BT Minister Priyank Kharge said on Thursday that the state government is in talks with corporates to develop a 50-50 syllabus, jointly developed between them, for engineering colleges.

However, the existing syllabus may or may not change and this will most likely be an additional skilling programme for students, an informed source later told DH. 

“In sync with the state’s skilling scheme - Nipuna Karnataka, a skill policy on this will also be announced during the upcoming state budget,” the person said.

Additionally, this policy will involve the adoption of 100 colleges by 100 corporates and global capability centres (GCCs). “If we follow this plan, Karnataka will be able to have the most equipped, well-trained and employable youth in the world,” said Kharge at the concluding day of the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

Citing an example, Kharge explained how a big automobile company is ready to provide jobs but students are not employable as they lack training. Such a scheme will aim to bridge that skilling gap.

The upcoming policy will be partially funded by the state and the rest will come from the corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of the corporates and GCCs, as skilling is a financially intensive task, the source explained. 

“Furthermore, a skill council will be set up, which will be in charge of the operations like filtering the right companies which fulfill the required technical and professional requirement,” the person said.

Other Announcements

Kharge also announced that the state government had entered partnerships with Germany, France, Finland and Switzerland. These range across industries. While the partnership with Germany and Finland is for sustainable development and manufacturing, France will be contributing to artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology sector.

The IT-BT department also announced a dual incubation program with Switzerland wherein 15 chosen startups will be involved. 

Kharge said that the government has set a target of having 10,000 startups from cities ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ in the next two years. This was in regard to the startup ecosystem the state provides - grants, aid and ease of doing business for startups to settle in the state. 

Apart from this, the new centre of excellence in artificial intelligence (AI), which was recently approved by the state cabinet, would be established with IIT Alumni Centre Bengaluru, he said.