NIIT agreement for IT programmes in China's Guian New Area

Information technology (IT) training company NIIT has entered into an agreement to offer programmes in new-age IT, with special focus on big data, with Guian New Area in the Guizhou province of China, a company statement said here Monday.

"At NIIT, we are committed to supporting China in its human capacity building initiative. It gives us great pleasure to join hands with Guian New Area to further open and accelerate new-age career opportunities like Big Data. I believe this MoU will further enhance our relationship with the country," said NIIT's CEO-designate Rahul Keshav Patwardhan.

The agreement was signed by Patwardhan during his recent visit to China and Ma Chang Qing, head of the Guizhou Guian New District.

"We were the first Indian IT training company to establish presence in China in the late nineties with a vision to create a manpower pool, to empower the software industry in the country," he said.

Under this agreement, NIIT will offer programmes in big data as Guian has been identified by the Chinese government as the national centre for the Big Data industry.

Elaborating on the agreement, Qin Ru Pei, vice governor of Guizhou further emphasized on NIIT's key role as the training partner and estimated the requirement to be around 50,000 trained students over the next five years.

"Apart from this, NIIT will offer wide range of cutting-edge IT skills training across various fields. Currently, there are over 10,000 students studying in the New University Town campus which is likely to grow to nearly 25,000 over the next few years. Hence, there exists a potential to train a large number of students," the statement quoted him as saying.

"NIIT will help support the vision of the Guizhou government and would train these students to develop the next generation of data scientists and business analytics professionals for opportunities in the big data industry," it added.

NIIT established its presence in China in 1997. Over the years, it has trained IT professionals for China's software outsourcing industry. With the support of its partners and institutions, it has trained more than 150,000 students in the country.

NIIT has a unique business model for co-operation with universities and colleges in China called the "NIIT Inside model", where NIIT programs are embedded in university/college IT curriculum.

Students may undergo a four year Bachelor Degree program or a three year Associate Degree program post 12th grade in Information Technology.

Currently, NIIT curriculum is embedded into both these programmes across multiple universities and colleges in China.