Adapting to market

It moved to China in 1998, noticing a skills deficiency in a country on the cusp of an IT boom. In 10 years in China, the firm has opened 172 locations in 65 cities and 25 provinces, training 50,000 Chinese students annually.

NIIT brought to China its education model that was widely successful in India, but introduced features to suit the specific interests of the Chinese market.

In China, NIIT works with universities to provide language and communications training to prepare university graduates to be industry-ready.

''What NIIT hopes to do is make a modest contribution to improving employability of college graduates in China,'' says Prakash Menon, CEO of NIIT China.

Last week, NIIT launched a program in Shanghai to meet the needs of an industry in a joint effort with six software giants including Microsoft, Sun and Cisco.

(Shanghai Daily November 24, 2008)