Hyderabad: Apple CEO Tim Cook’s announcement last week that the tech giant would establish its maps division in Hyderabad — generating an estimated 4,000 jobs — was received with a lot of enthusiasm.
But the question remains: How many from Telangana will land these jobs.
For jobs in development of digital maps , applicants with a geoinformatics background are preferred because of skills in geography, cartography and geographic information systems, or GIS. In Telangana, only the Osmania and Telangana universities offer an MSc in geoinformatics. But both their departments have a long way to go if their students are to equipped for recruitment by companies like Apple. The last time there was a noteworthy placement for an MSc in geoinformatics was in 2008 in OU, when Google arrived for campus placements. The company has not returned since.
Both OU and TU’s departments suffer from a very serious faculty shortage too. OU’s geography department has just 10 faculty members against a sanctioned strength of 20. There are five professors of whom, three will be retiring by 2016’s end.
“There is no effort by the university to prepare students for jobs in geoinformatics or to bridge the gap between industry and subject,” says a student.
He adds that students don’t even know how to apply, and for which jobs. So, most of them end up applying for government jobs and lower level clerical positions. “An M.Sc geoinformatics student I know went to Bihar to work as a clerk,” he said.
Meanwhile, an MSc geoinformatics student from OU who was placed in Google said, “We pressurised the university through protests after which Google visited, for placements.”
