The Hindu : Front Page : Non-IT students’ chances better

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Thursday, Mar 05, 2009
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Non-IT students’ chances better

Amutha Kannan

COIMBATORE: The academic year from June 2008 to January 2009 was disappointing as far as campus placements for arts, science and engineering students were concerned. While the trend is no better for Information Technology (IT) related disciplines, companies have started visiting colleges for recruiting students from other disciplines.

In the engineering sector, civil, mechanical, electronics and electrical engineers are in demand. According to P.S. Senthil Kumar, placement officer, Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Technology, offers for civil and mechanical final year students were higher than those in last year.

Students from the IT and ITES sector from the region seem to have been placed only to the extent of 20 per cent to 25 per cent. Worse, there are still those who have got offer letters in 2007 and 2008, but are yet to be given a posting. Experts feel that unless they take up any job that comes their way – be it backend, software testing or maintenance – for even lesser salaries, they will remain jobless for quite sometime. “They can join smaller companies with salaries less than Rs. 20,000 and continue there till the economic situation looks up. At least they will be able to clear the educational loans,” opines Mr. Kumar. The IT placement prospects in arts and science colleges too look bleak. With no response from software and hardware companies, the university experts feel that the IT-related students should either go in for multi-skill specialisation or higher studies.

They suggest e-publishing and e-tutoring as alternative options besides those already suggested for engineering students.

M. Jayakumar, Director, Department of Extension and Career Guidance, Bharathiar University, says that the university is organising a series of placement drives for commerce, business management, international business, mathematics, and economics streams.

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