To meet the huge demand of skilled manpower in the telecom industry, the Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) has taken the initiative to introduce short-term courses in collaboration with academic institutions across the country. As a first step in that direction, it recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the city’s MIT School of Telecom Management (MITSOT).

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MITSOT, together with TSSC, is launching short-term courses of 3 to 6 months’ duration including those for territory sales manager (prepaid), sales executive (broadband) and territory sales manager (prepaid) this month.

The tie-up was announced at a press meeting held recently in Pune, wherein chief executive officer (CEO) of TSSC, Commodore (retd) J Jena stated that lack of adequate skilled manpower is affecting the fast growing Indian telecom sector.

He said, “Being the second largest telecom market, India is fast becoming a manufacturing hub for the telecom infrastructure equipment and the success story will continue with 3G networks and smartphones. In an effort to bridge the gap, TSSC has been taking plenty of initiatives.”

Project director at MIT Group of Institutes, Milind Pande, said that initially MITSOT will be offering three short-term courses and later increase the number of courses. “We are also looking forward to up scaling and rescaling the skills of existing professionals through these courses. In that direction, we recently arranged a meeting with distributors and handset retailers,” he said.

A government of India undertaking, TSSC, was set up under the aegis of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). TSSC is a non-profit organisation and an industry-led apex body, jointly set up by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Indian Cellular Association (ICA) and Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE) to ensure adequate availability of skilled manpower to boost growth and productivity in the telecom sector.

With the recent launch of Standard Training Assessment and Reward (STAR) Scheme, TSSC is now scaling up to educate 80,000 trainees 

by August 2014 with an infusion of over Rs80 crore into skill development in the telecom sector.

‘Focus is on 25 high priority job roles’ 

Commodore (retd) J Jena, CEO, Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) tells Rajesh Rao that TSSC aims at quality of the courses and will spread awareness among colleges.  

 What are the job roles that have been defined by TSSC in the telecom sector?There are around 150 job roles in the telecom sector included in the four verticals of infra, service providers, devices manufacturers and network management. Presently, 25 job roles which cover more than 70% of the manpower landscape have been identified. TSSC has finalised the occupational standards of these high priority job roles and hosted on the public domain (NSDC and TSSC websites).

TSSC has signed an MoU with the Gujarat government recently. Will you do the same with other states?This has been followed by an MoU with the Kerala government. We have further initiated discussions with governments of Delhi, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Our objective is to also initiate a dialogue with Government of Maharashtra.

Through how many centres and colleges will you start this skill development programme?We are in the process of building up awareness among the universities and colleges, either directly or through the state government, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), University Grants Commission (UGC), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is also pursuing the same. Our aim is to create quality and not commodity approach.

Will the vocational courses started at MIT School of Telecom Management (MITSOT) be under the Standard Training Assessment and Reward (STAR) scheme?Certain courses would be under the STAR scheme; depending upon the level of courses taken up by the MIT.