What would you identify as the emerging trends in the Indian infotech training scenario?

In the coming days more and more students will opt for branded courses. The training industry is already segmented between the big brands and the small time trainers and the brand names are often a guarantee of quality and job opportunity. These four or five brands will be strengthened in the future. The big names can also invest heavily to keep themselves updated. We, for example, have to change our syllabus and course modules every six months. Today we aretalking so much about e-commerce, but six months back no one was concerned about it. Networking and multimedia are other areas of training that are important today, but the trends in this industry keep changing.

We recently had the Nasscom chairman telling us in an interview that the Indian training industry is in a poor shape as far as training manpower needed by companies like Infosys of TCS -- your comments.

I would agree with that point of view. There is a lot of cost involved in high-end training. The investments needed for training in some of the high-end platforms may be as high as Rs 1 crore. We have to recover that money within a year or so by when the technology may be obsolete. We cannot recover the costs over 10 years like other industries. Then again the ability of a student to pay for such courses is another question. We are not getting any grants or aids from the government either.

So what we provide a student is an opening into the infotech industry from where he can start apromising career. That is where the major market is and that is where we will get the volumes and naturally have to give it importance.

There is no benchmark today in India for IT training provided by the private training industry. It is often a question of successful brand building by each of the companies -- are you comfortable with the situation?

Actually I am comfortable with the scenario. Invariably in job interviews the top brands get a preference and the small timers really find it difficult to place their students. We are recognised by the industry. However a recognition from the government to the top training institutes would have been better. There is also a case for government aid here as I was mentioning before. In that case we would be able to serve meritorious students without putting a financial burden on them.

Government can also subsidise high-end hardware needed for training purpose. The government can also help to work out a green corridor for our people so that we can sendthem over to USA for absorbing technology and coming back to implement the same in India. That is what Japan had done in the 1970s.

How is the training industry poised for the future growth?

In this industry you are obsolete in six months. Often you do not know what will become obsolete and what will remain relevant. You have to accept that and work that into your plans. We have accepted it and that is why we are here. I recently had a Microsoft executive telling me that the company plans to change policies around the world every six months with technology changes. Of course the Indian IT industry needs to mature a lot before more can be done -- we are still providing cheap labour to foreign projects. As we do more high-end work and move into products the profile of the training industry will also undergo a change. Again a world class product needs millions of hours of manpower in terms of investment.

Interestingly, today most of the students are not job-seekers but people who want to upgradetheir skills. Professionals not interested in the IT industry, but who need to pick up certain skills constitute a bulk of our students. This is an interesting change in the student profile we are witnessing.

You are planning to launch all the LCC courses on the Internet. What impact do you feel the Internet will have on education and training?

It is a question of mindset. The Internet is here to stay and you have instances of people dialing up long distance from small towns after 11 pm to access the Internet. People will find ways of accessing the net and the revolution will take place. Just as you can stick to old systems unless you are forced to change, in the present scenario too people will be forced to change to include the Internet in their plans and processes.

Education through the Internet can cut down on wastage of time as the student does not have to commute to the training centre. The ambitious amongst us will always want to take advantage of the Internet and I believe every smalltown in India will have access within a year.