Outsourcers train UK graduates
In 2010, when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited India, the chairman of IT outsourcer Wipro, offered to help train UK IT and engineering students.
In 2010, when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited India, the chairman of IT outsourcer Wipro, offered to help train UK IT and engineering students. Called the Indian Gateway Internship programme – and in fact partly funded by a joint UK-Indian NGO, the UK India Research and Education Initiative – the programme has actually come to fruition.
It’s a one-year training programme that starts with a three-month technology induction course. This is followed by six months of on-the-job training with Wipro teams. Students will then spend three months working on real-life projects. Of course, the training takes place in India.
Twenty candidates were selected for the programme in May this year. They all have an engineering degree or were about to complete one and had to prove their mathematical ability. The candidates have just begun their course, arriving in India for their three-month technology induction course a few weeks ago.
Wipro is not the only Indian firm offering training to UK graduates. HCL is working with 12 universities to provide workshops on technology and management, as well as running competitions to drive innovation. At the same time Infosys has announced over 100 UK apprenticeship places over the next five years, through a programme set up jointly with the National Apprenticeship Scheme (NAS).
You may wonder why these companies are doing this. Well apart from being a great public relations exercise for firms that suffer from a poor public perception, they are also training valuable talent. All these companies are increasing their operations in the UK and therefore they need local talent. These programmes will help provide this.
At Future Processing we also offer workshops at local universities, run competitions like Deadline24 and we have a strong track record in employing technical graduates during the summer holidays. My experience is that this sort of initiative really does help improve standards in the industry, while at the same time making recruitment much easier. I think the Indian outsourcers are on to a winner.
