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PROJECT GENESIS: PROGRAM OVERVIEW |
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The ITeS industry is quickly becoming one the largest employers today. With many
companies keen on capitalizing on the advantages that outsourcing offers, there
are innumerable job opportunities being created every day. One would think that
in a country like India with its huge population, getting graduates to fill these
positions would not be a problem. Yet every year the industry faces a manpower crunch.
The primary reason for this crunch is the mismatch between the skills sets of the
available graduates and those required by this industry. 2.1 million Students graduate
out of general degree colleges in India each year out of which only 10-15% of them
are estimated to have the requisite skills to be employed in the BPO industry. This
has given rise to a growing labor shortage and high attrition rates in the industry
as companies compete to hire from a limited pool of employable graduates.
Keeping these factors in mind, Infosys BPO conceived Project Genesis.
Project Genesis is an initiative aimed at aligning the teaching and course-curriculum
at Graduate Schools to the industry requirements so the students have an edge as
far as employability is concerned. A skill level assessment was conducted across
colleges from tier II and III towns in various parts of the country. Based on the
results, a “Global skills Enhancement curriculum” was developed. The implementation
of this curriculum ensures that the education for these graduate students is more
than theoretical knowledge and makes them industry-ready by the time they graduate.
The initiative began in the year 2005. As of Dec 2010 we have partnered with 1579
colleges. We have enabled 3113 academicians across the country and touched close
to 85495 students in the 5 years run we have had.
Project Genesis has its presence in 7 states as of today, these include: Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan & Tamil Nadu.
Course Content
The Global Skills Enhancement (GSE) curriculum is a result of extensive skills assessment
done by Infosys BPO in B and C towns of the country and the current industry requirements.
The identified skills were mapped to the BPO industry and thus were born two streams
of GSE curriculum: – Language Enhancement and Analytical Skills
Language Enhancement (LE) – Focuses on basic skills required to communicate
effectively with people. The course includes topics like Grammar, Phonetics, Business
Writing and Fluency in speech along with interview skills and personality development.
It also sheds light on Adult Learning, Training methodology and skills required
to be an effective trainer, thus providing an added advantage to the teaching community.
Analytical Skills (AS) – Focuses on creative thinking, Problem Solving and
decision making, Change, Conflict and Resource Management. The course also includes
topics like Adult Learning, Training Methodology and skills required to be an effective
trainer. As the students have to be employment ready by the time they graduate,
efforts have been put in to enhance their skills for facing interviews, Group discussion
and personality development.
Project Phases:
Phase 1 10 day Train the Trainer Workshop for
lecturers
Train the Trainer Program:
Duration: The duration of the TTT program is 10 working days (6 days of training
per week).
Eligibility criteria for the lecturers: For effective implementation of GSE
curriculum, we require a minimum of two lecturers (one for LE & one for AS) from
each college. For LE, English teaching faculty is preferred. For AS, lecturers from
other subjects are eligible i.e. Physics, Maths, Chemistry, History etc. The faculty
should be enthusiastic and willing to implement GSE curriculum in the college. The
nominations of the faculty are at the sole discretion of the college authorities.
Methodology: The training methodology was learner-centered experiential learning.
This model ensures that the following concepts are formally addressed during the
TTT.
- Letting participants know why GSE is important
- Showing participants how to direct themselves through information
- Relating the topic to the participants’ experiences
- Lecturers and students will not learn until motivated to learn
- Helping participants overcome inhibitions, behaviors, and beliefs about learning
The GSE curriculum focuses on two important domains of learning:
- Adult Learning
- LE / AS specific content.
The facilitators for Project Genesis have been trained and certified by British Council
on various adult training techniques. These experiential learning techniques are
adopted for training the lecturers will have to implement the same to train the
final year graduates in their respective colleges.
Along with content delivery from the facilitators, a few hours are reserved everyday
for the lecturers to browse the internet and gather more content on the specific
topic. (Co-Curriculum Development) The content thus developed is validated by the
facilitators and collated.
Assessment: While training, the lecturers are required to demonstrate their
newly acquired training skills either through a teach-back session or presentations.
Relevant constructive feedback will be provided for further skill enhancement. Three
individual feedbacks will be collected from the lecturers to assess our program
effectiveness. These inputs are crucial in making Project Genesis robust to bring
in revolution in the non-technical education arena.
A Comprehensive “Global Skills Enhancement” curriculum is developed for Language
Enhancement and Analytical Skills. The TTT program is an eye-opener for the teaching
fraternity on the current training trends of the BPO industry. To enhance their
skills the lecturers have to do research and develop their own content on the topics
covered in the class.
Phase 2
- Planning the implementation of the program to ensure maximum number of students
benefit from this initiative. This is in conjunction with the college management
and principal.
- The selection of the students is done by the college and the trained lecturers.
There is no limit on the number of students being trained.
Phase 3
- Global Skills Enhancement training conducted in all the participative colleges.
Once the students are selected, they will have to take a Pre Course test to assess
their standard.
- Regular reviews and assessments.
- At the end of the program another test is administered to judge the changes in their
skill sets.
Phase 4
- Job Fairs organized at different nodal Centers
Program Coordinators Contact Details:
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Prakriti Massey
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prakriti_massey@infosys.com
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Shweta Raghunath
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shweta_raghunath@infosys.com
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Ekta Jain
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ekta_jain01@infosys.com
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Abhishek Chatterjee
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abhishek_rc@infosys.com
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