If detailed communication across various public universities is to be believed the IT Industry Academia Bridge Program has taken its roots in the Sindh province, at least, whereas per the agreement signed between the Information, Science and Technology Department (ISTD) and Hazza Institute of Technology 3000 undergraduates are to be trained in the most modern skills ruling the IT industry now.
I am confident that after this training I shall be able to join any software house or start earning from home, responds a trainee in Sindh University Jamshoro’s Computer Department. Braving the sweltering June heat in hilly Jamshoro, he is not the only one who sees his future turning clear, almost everyone in the training session had begun to visualize what this training is about to bring for them.
Normally undergraduates in our universities keep on swinging about their future but the bridge program has helped them set a kind of objective. ‘I will be a programmer and thus pursuing this training, says yet another trainee who was sitting in another university in Bhit Shah just 50 kilometers away from Jamshoro. His class fellows were found focused on one or another skill that the program has introduced in the training.
Both classes in Jamshoro and Bhit Shah had a stark similarity other than sweltering temperatures. The trainers marked by the Hazza Institute have been able to bolster the confidence of the trainees whose university courses might have lagged to instill good prospects for the future; this training methodology has been able to bridge the gap. ‘’We are doing all these courses practically which we knew theoretically before and trainers are focused’, say the students of both universities.
But the response of trainees and trainers apart, what has made this program more famous is the analysis of the focal persons in the universities which now have come in the domain of the bridge program. The best part of the program is that it is linked with the IT industry and thus focuses practical part of education, says Dr. Intesab, Chairman of the Computer Systems Department of the Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering, Science & Technology (QUEST), Nawabshah. Dr. Intesab is the focal person of the program but his views are not isolated ones. His views draw a parallel with Dr. Qasim Memon at Sifu University Bhit Shah and Dr. Khalil at Sindh University Jamshoro. All three heads of their departments suggest the comprehensive practical side of the program makes it distinct.
This communication suggests that since the universities rely mostly on a theoretical approach, the students remain thirsty on the practical side and this program has created a real bridge.
The most interesting aspect is that public universities are not the only institutions that require fast-track updating of their curriculum which normally see changes after three to four years, the private universities which are deemed to be better paint the same picture. ‘’In this program, we are being trained in practical terms that we did not get in normal university courses’, says a female trainee at ISRA University Hyderabad. Interestingly, her views depict the same picture that is portrayed by yet another girl in IoBM Karachi. Sitting 200 kilometers away but they find the same gap between theory and practice.
Engineering Reviews’ visit to these universities unfolded yet another revelation that no matter whether you are in IoBM Karachi or ISRA University Hyderabad or Bhit Shah or Nawabshah, the university students’ aptitude for learning remains the same.