Time To Get Skilled

Developing vocational courses, and integrating them with higher education, is improving career prospects.

- Lola Nayar

VOCATIONAL training doesn’t ensure a job, but it improves employability. It can work to your advantage if you are willing to look beyond the traditional academic landscape. Ask Abhinav Madan, and he’ll tell you there are more jobs than students undergoing skill development.

He’s the key person behind the skill development verticals at Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM), which has its main campuses in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh and skill development centres across nine states. Established in 2005, CUTM became the youngest university in the private sector to receive an A+ accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) under the Ministry of human resource development (HRD) in 2005.

Over the last 14 years, CUTM has made over 1.5 lakh students job-ready in various vocations—manufacturing, retail & hospitality, IT, apparel, textiles and healthcare, among others. Its placement record has been no less impressive: 100 per cent in banking, 80 per cent in Diploma/ITI (1-2-3 year course), 88 per cent in tailoring, 78 per cent in the short-term service sector and 76 per cent in automotive/ manufacturing.

CUTM is now targeting training around 50,000 students annually, mostly under government funded programmes such as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and state skill development missions (in Jharkand, UP, AP and Meghalaya). Besides industry supported programmes, it has also funded students who are opting for B.Voc programmes.