Nasscom revamps recruitment exam

Chennai: With IT industry body Nasscom’s grand designs of a common recruitment exam for campus placements failing to take off, the association has now come up with a revamped format of the exam to make students job-ready for instant deployment by corporates. However, most colleges continue to remain sceptical of the idea.

NACTech (Nasscom assessment of competence-technology) was drawn up as a national standard for employability assessment of engineering students about a year ago and announced as a pre-requisite for campus recruitment. But lack of clarity over its conduct and relevance resulted in a lot of dissent among colleges and corporates.

“In line with the changing needs of the industry, we have now defined unique job roles and qualification packs for the industry and have refurbished NACTech exams,” said Dr Sandhya Chintala, executive director, IT-ITeS sector skills council of Nasscom. “We shall shortly be sending letters to all our associates to make it a pre-requisite for recruitment,” she added. However, NACTech continues to be a bone of contention with most engineering colleges in the state.

“The exam never took off in a big way as top software companies continue to hire students with their own test and interview methods, killing the spirit of the programme,” said a placement officer of one of the private engineering colleges.

“While IT firms are keen to begin recruitment as early as September, if Nasscom insists NACTech as a pre-requisite, it is not viable for colleges,” said another placement head.
While most top IT companies recruit students from a handful of private engineering colleges in top cities and 2-3 deemed universities, what is the purpose of rolling out the test across the state, lamented a university administrator.

Nasscom is also gearing up to offer UGC-approved Bachelor of Vocation courses along with the regular programme to improve students’ skill in their area of interest simultaneously. “A pilot project with 100 colleges is already on across the country. With over 60 affiliated trainers, full-fledged courses may be launched from next academic year,” Dr Chintala said.