After what must surely have been the nadir year for recruitment, both in numbers and average salary, industry is slowly and surely beginning to once again augment its human resource. A weak revival began after last year's placement session - a psychological creation - had closed for many an institute.
Thus the 'late bird' did get many a 'late worm'! Along with new-fangled service recruitments, an old faithful - the engineering sector - is also picking up.
And that's good news for management poised to enter the industrial world. It must be said to the credit of our current batch seeking placements that they did not let the dismal scene of the previous year divert them from their purpose.
They discerned correctly that jobs may vanish temporarily, not careers, and have adopted a healthy zero-based approach to their own placements. At the same time they witnessed the meteoric rise in the industry made by our very young alumni and so have not abandoned the ECCIB tradition-in-the-making of preparing for long-term sustainability rather than immediate flashes. In support of career-orientation, this year we introduced the Balanced Grade Card (BGC) on a pilot basis. The BGC is a holistic evaluation of the student which focuses not only on performance outcomes but also on demonstrated effort and underlying competencies. By surfacing the underpinnings of performance, the student is able to take informed decisions for corrective actions towards specific performance. The generic component of competencies and effort propensities can also form a meaningful input for long-term career decisions. In addition to aiding choices, the BGC also prepares the student for the 3600 evaluations of industry.
Another move to strengthen our curriculum delivery is the introduction of seminar credits. Rapid changes in IT industry practices need to be addressed in the curriculum without diluting the delivery of the core body of management knowledge. Many management institutes accommodate both requirements under one delivery which leads to an unfocused approach. through seminar credits, we have introduced a parallel stream for latest IT industrial practices to be delivered by industry experts, leaving unscathed the delivery of core knowledge by academia.
A number of initiatives in industry-institute collaboration have been taken this year, notably the mentorship programme, integrating summer guides in the assessment schemes and industry-integration in the curriculum. The effect is already evident in the quality of teaching-learning on the campus and the knowledge-skill-attitude offering the students are making to industry.
