Infotech Lead India: HP has launched HP Institute in India, an academic partnership program.
The HP initiative will equip students with business-ready IT skills. The HP Institute is part of the HP ExpertOne program and will offer HP Accredited Technical Associate (ATA) certifications.
The launch in India follows the introduction of the HP Institute in the UK in February 2012.
As part of the training program, HP will work with Indian universities to bring practical experience and job-ready skills into an academic setting, packaged in a way to help India develop the abilities of its graduate workforce.
The World Bank, in its April 2011 policy research working paper titled, Employability and Skill Set of Newly Graduated Engineers in India, reports that about 64 percent of employers in India are not satisfied with the skill sets of fresh engineering graduates.
HP said the technology major will work with schools, colleges and universities to deliver the courses, aiming to improve the IT skills of over 65,000 graduates over the next five years.
“There is a pressing need across the IT ecosystem to ensure that entry-level hires are better equipped with the precise skills and experience they need to handle today’s technical and business challenges,” said Neelam Dhawan, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Group and country managing director, HP India.
Through the HP Institute program, students may complete four HP Accredited Technical Associate certifications. Each certification covers industry-standard technologies and includes a complete learning program of courseware, practice tests, hands-on remote labs and certification exams. The certification exams cover connected devices, networks, servers and storage, and cloud.
“Finding employees with the requisite technical skills is a recurring challenge. The HP ATA is extremely relevant because it enables us to identify talent that is job-ready in terms of their ability to understand the technologies that businesses use now and are therefore able to hit the ground running from day one,” said RS Shanbhag, chairman and MD at HP value channel partner ValuePoint Group.
HP will help students improve their career and earning potential via qualifications and education. They will also gain practical experience with industry-standard hardware and software. By offering the HP Accredited Technical Associate qualification, academic institutions can elevate degree programs to potential employers by providing more rounded and better graduates with much needed technology skills, expertise, and business insight.
