Corporates pitch in to play key role in ‘Naan Mudhalvan’ scheme

Till date, 53 memoranda of agreement have been signed with the Tamil Nadu Skill Development Corporation for the purpose

Corporates, industrial bodies and chambers of commerce are pitching in to play a crucial role in the Tamil Nadu government’s ‘Naan Mudhalvan’ scheme aimed at equipping college students with industry-relevant skills.

So far, 53 memoranda of agreement have been signed with the Tamil Nadu Skill Development Corporation. For instance, NPTEL-IIT Madras have inked a deal to offer courses from the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL). Vignesh Muthuvijayan, coordinator, NPTEL-IIT Madras, says, “Students will have access to online videos for courses that are part of the scheme. NPTEL also has discussion forums where students can get clarifications.” Many courses also offer live interaction with faculty members and research scholars of IITs and IISc, whose joint venture is NPTEL.

Job-oriented courses

The Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) has also supported the initiative. “We were probably the first chamber to launch the War for Talent programme many years ago to provide finishing school programmes to final-year students to make them employment-ready,” says MCCI president T.R. Kesavan.

“To start with, we have identified a few job-oriented courses in areas like Exim management, business, labour and taxation laws, industry automation and computer skills. More courses will be added as we move on. The courses will be rolled out soon,” he adds.

Veranda Learning has started taking on students. Its chairman and ED Kalpathi S. Suresh says, “We joined this scheme as it aligned with our philosophy of taking education to smaller towns and encouraging students.” Data show that by October-end, Veranda Learning had received 73,034 registrations from students across Tamil Nadu for free courses under the Naan Mudhalvan scheme. Students have opted for courses such as app development, banking foundation, CA Foundation, data science, DevOps and IAS foundation among others.

NASSCOM, the trade body for the information technology industry, has been part of this initiative since its inception. Its spokesperson said, “We are ensuring that the emerging technologies’ content is aligned to the defined job standards. We are also creating assessments that will test practical applications of the skill. As part of the initiative, we will also be providing a few free courses to students.”

Infosys Limited and L&T have started courses. L&T offers courses such as building information modelling and transport infrastructure. Infosys offers courses like full stack and machine learning with object recognition.