IBM to offer free online courses on state-run NSDC's skill portal

Learning will be for emergency technologies and professional development, says company.

Tech giant IBM will offer free online courses on emergency technologies and professional development on the eSkill India portal of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The online courses, curated from its 'Open P-TECH' platform, will be offered to the 18-22 age group, the company said.

IBM will catalogue its over 30 Open P-TECH courses on eSkill India portal, with around 60 hours of learning, as a knowledge partner. It would cover technologies such as cybersecurity, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud, internet of things (IoT) for free.

IBM's flagship learning portal Open P-TECH started in March, fetching 9,000 learners in India and 44,000 worldwide yet. "Open P-TECH platform will offer courses to develop soft skills, interpersonal skills, problem solving — a set of 11 key skills which are generally not available in a college curriculum, but are high in demand and are valued in the job market," the company said in a statement. 

The modules are currently available in English but IBM plans to bring the platform in 11 Indian vernacular languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Bengali.

“As the pandemic is driving the digital transition to happen more quickly, there must be new forms of learning if we want to empower young learners with technical and market-related skills," said Sandip Patel, managing director, IBM (India and South Asia). "Aligned to the country’s SkillIndia mission, we are taking another step in the evolution of our digital education approach to help the next generation of professionals have the exciting future they deserve.”

A NSDC certification enables skilled workers to bargain for up to 15 per cent higher remuneration.

In June, NSDC joined hands with TCS iON, the Tata Group firm's arm that provides technology solutions to educational institutions. It was aimed to provide NSDC's training partners access to TCS iON Digital Glass Room, by enabling classroom vocational skills training move online for millions of students across the country amid the Covid-19 pandemic.