 The
Andhra Pradesh Government is all set to scale great heights
in the field of IT Education. It has signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) with Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) of Pittsburgh. Together, they will form a consortium
of leading global and Indian universities to introduce
'an innovative, interdisciplinary, multi-university
post-graduate programme' in Information Technology.
Professor C. Subba Rao, Chairman of A.P. State
Council of Higher Education and Professor Raj Reddy
of CMU, signed the MoU in the presence of Chief Minister
Chandrababu Naidu. Naidu described it as a "mega
dream" come true. "My desire is that it should
produce about a lakh of IT post-graduates in the next
few years", he added.
To begin with, a pilot programme would be taken up at
a few university centres in Hyderabad. Within two to three
years, more centres will be added to train 10,000 post-graduate
students.
CMU has agreed to collaborate in the design and implementation
of this multi-university programme, offer its course and
faculty resources and co-sign the degree to be awarded
at the end of the programme. Students will earn a Master
of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) degree.
The course would be a combination of Information Technology
and Software Skills with high emphasis on practical training.
This multi-university programme would use sophisticated
distance education methodologies combining a traditional
Gurukul approach with unique strengths and capabilities
of several international and Indian universities. It would
be delivered through well-equipped electronic classrooms
housed in the finest IT and engineering institutions.
A centre for Distributed Learning would be set
up by the consortium of universities to act as a nodal
agency for offering this programme. "One million children
are born in Andhra Pradesh every year and at least ten
per cent of them are as bright and brilliant as the people
sitting in this room. The only problem is that they do
not get the opportunities. This could be solved with the
new experiment," said Professor Raj Reddy. It remains
to be seen whether this mega dream could become a path-breaking
initiative to meet the huge demands of high caliber IT
professionals.
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