With the alarming rate at which unemployment is growing, mainstream courses like engineering and science have taken a backseat. Graduates are finding it harder to gain employment because almost every industry requires technically-skilled employees.
Vels University, Chennai, which will soon be celebrating its 25th anniversary, has taken the right step to ensure employability of their graduates by including several new job-oriented courses as part of their curriculum. “Practical courses are the need of the hour. Our primary focus is to make sure that our students are placed as soon as they finish their degree,” says actor-turned educationist Ishari Ganesh, founder of the university.
Today, the Vels Group has about eight schools in Chennai with about 10,000 students. It was conferred the University status on July 4, 2008 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Vels University is one of the few universities to offer new courses like Physiotheraphy, Catering, Marine Studies, Music and Fine Arts. It was bestowed the deemed university status in 2008. In fact, in the recent NIRF rankings, the B Pharm course was ranked among the top 50.
The university conducts courses in collaboration with IBM, Infosys and CII. It also maintains a balance between modern and job-oriented trends in education. “Our aim at the moment, is to make this university one among the top universities in the world,” says Ishari Ganesh. Students are assessed based on several factors like commitment to contact hours, peer-group learning, work experience and individual initiatives. Faculty members are also encouraged to publish textbooks based on their expertise in research and teaching.
