More oracular wisdom for engineering students

 HYDERABAD: THE Institute of Electronic Governance (Department of IT&C, Andhra Pradesh), Oracle India Private Limited and Oracle Academy announced the extension of the academy's business and technology curriculum to 342 more Jawahar Knowledge Centres across the State.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at his camp office on Wednesday morning.

The IEG, which leads the State's JKC initiative, will work with Oracle to deliver the programme to the 342 engineering colleges identified under the initiative.

Addressing a press conference here today, CEO of IEG, Amarnath Reddy, managing director, Oracle India, Krishan Dhawan, Director Academic) IEG,M.Chandrasekhar, and Krishna Sistla of Oracle Education Initiatives, Asia Pacific, said that as per the MoU, the academy's curriculum would be made available to more than 50,000 students over the next two-year period.

In addition, faculty of the 342 JKCs will receive intensive training in the curriculum designed to impart to students "vital skills for 21st century careers".

Students from Andhra Pradesh will join the over 103,000 students from 900 educational institutions in the Asia Pacific region who have already benefited from the Oracle Academy Programme.

Amarnath Reddy said IEG aimed to "transform Andhra Pradesh into a knowledge society through the JKC initiative,"and added: "This is in line with the State Government's reform process which attempts to bridge the gap between industry and academia and enhance the employability of students."

He said several other States had approached IEG to help implement similar initiatives. These included Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Karnataka.