Education Briefs

Infiniti Modules Pvt Ltd, a leading Goa-based manufacturer of office and school furniture, which is the sole and exclusive partner in India of VS Vereinigte Spezialmobelfabriken GmBH & Co, Tauberbischofsheim (Germany), the largest school furniture manufacturer in Europe, is contemplating legal action against unauthorised pirated designs of VS school furniture, especially the Lupoglide chair and Uno-M Classroom table. "This a serious breach of intellectual property law under the Trade Practices Act and a violation of property rights," says Sonali Jasani Trivedi managing director of Infiniti Modules.

According to Trivedi, VS Vereinigte is a century old, highly respected corporate whose product designs are based on detailed ergonomic studies conforming to DIN-ISO-Standard 5970, which defines the sizes of this type of furniture and classifies them into six groups. These groups contain several sizes of tables and chairs for kindergarten through university, as specified by the DIN standard. Infiniti-VS customers include The American School (Mumbai), BITS Pilani, DPS and Modern School, Delhi, Bombay International, Shreenidhi, New Era School among others.

"Principals and trustees of leading and reputed schools in India should not purchase or recommend pirated products. Being in the business of imparting moral and ethics education to future generations, they should respect proprietary rights. Schools are requested to cease the purchase of unauthorised copies of VS furniture and also communicate our warning to other institutions," says Trivedi.

A total solutions company providing software sales, training, staffing, project outsourcing and consultancy services, the Indore-based SQTL offers practice-oriented professional qualifications to students and corporates. Over 4,000 students and professionals are being trained in SQTL centres in 13 locations across the country.

"Domestic companies are continuously striving to get candidates who will require minimal induction training and are productive from day one. Due to the vocational orientation and practical approach of our study programmes, SQTL students are a preferred choice of employers," says a company spokesperson.

The Bangalore-based 24x7 Learning recently launched SkillBridge which it describes as "an employability enhancement programme initiative to address the critical shortage of manpower in the IT (information technology) and ITES (IT enabled services) industries". SkillBridge focuses on imparting the skills required to make all engineers — including the 75 percent popularly regarded as unemployable — employable. The eight-month programme will help engineering graduates develop communication, personality development, team work, spoken English, interview preparation etc skills. The company plans to train around 20,000 students under this programme this fiscal.

"SkillBridge is a significant step forward in the IT industry’s attempt to bridge the widening manpower demand-supply gap. It will help India Inc to sustain high levels of growth by being able to hire skilled manpower," says K.S. Karthik, the promoter chief executive of 24 x 7 Learning.

Anil Chhikara, co-founder and president of the company elaborates: "Our focus is primarily on engineering colleges in the tier-II and tier III cities where the job-placement records are bad due to students’ skill gaps. Besides helping these students acquire the skills required, we will help them find employment with leading corporates. Our existing relationship with six of the top ten IT companies and seven of top ten ITES companies will help us achieve this goal. SkillBridge will thus help education institutes improve their placement records and branding."

With regional offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad, 24x7 Learning supports corporates and education institutes to meet their manpower demand and supply challenges. Since it was registered in 2001 it has provided e-learning solutions to leading companies including Wipro, Patni, MindTree, Bharti Airtel, Xansa, Aditya Birla, Accenture, Convergys, Philips, 24/7 Customer and EServe among others.

To level the playing field for ST (scheduled caste), ST (scheduled tribe) and OBC (other backward castes) students in Madhya Pradesh, the State Bank of Indore organised a week-long free training programme for students from these socio-economically disadvantaged communities to help them prepare for the State Bank of India’s competitive entrance exams. The programme was conducted at the State Bank of Indore staff academy in late November.

Regular classes for maths, aptitude, English and current affairs were conducted by trained teachers including Chanchal Jain and Ashish Vani. This special training programme will be conducted again from December 11-16 and December 23-28. For further information call 0731-2578004 / 2578002 or 94250 67146.

The Mumbai-based Zee Interactive Learning Systems (ZILS) which manages 471 pre-schools across India under the name and style of Kidzee, received the FLA Nominee Award 2006 of the Franchising & Licensing Association, Singapore (FLA). ZILS has been included in a list of most successful franchisors from seven countries around the world.

"This year FLA Award 2006 has widened its scope to include franchisors from around the world associated with our sister associations who are members of the World Franchise Council. This new Award — International Franchisor of the Year 2006 — will bring the standard of our franchisors to a higher level," says a FLA spokesperson.