make in India
Market Survey:
Training Sector Seeing Rising Demand
for New Subjects
W
Abhishek A. Mutha
is a senior technical
correspondent at EFY
ith ever-changing technologies
and expectations of a smarter
work force for best results,
training is viewed as a skill accelerator tool
rather than an additional expense incurred.
Aspirants looking to study abroad to pursue a masters degree are also enrolling in
training institutes to specialise in their area
of interest. Industry experts feel that this
will help them in selecting the right courses and modules, and screen universities.
It will also help them in preparing a good
Importance of tying up with industry
“We have partnered with companies like Freescale, ARM and STMicroelectronics,
and are also a member of India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA).
This helps us in staying in sync with current trends and demands in the industry. It
also helps us design our curriculum accordingly.”
—Jayant Kaintura, head - learning and development, Tevatron Technologies
“It is very important for a training institute to tie up with semiconductor and
electronics companies. It gives the training institute brand recognition in society. It
also helps us to stay in touch with current happenings in the industry and make sure
courses never become outdated and meet the requirements of the industry as well.”
—Venkatesh Prasad, CEO, RV-VLSI
Point of view: The training products sector
Latest demand trends. We cater to all engineering colleges, polytechnics and
defence training establishments across the country. Army, Navy and Air Force have
their own training centres.
In defence training establishments, there is demand for simulators. Air Force
requires different parts of an aircraft to be supplied as simulators, such as landing
gear system simulator or cockpit simulator, so that trainees can have first-hand
training before they move on to the real aircraft.
In engineering colleges, demand of training mostly depends on the syllabus.
Whenever there is a revision in the syllabus of the university, upgraded training
products are accordingly provided. For instance, this year some engineering
colleges have introduced DSP training kits and microcontroller projects.
New product segments. Only a revision in syllabus will give rise to new
products and segments. If we develop a training product out of an educational
university’s syllabus, it is difficult for us to supply. Only a handful of engineering
colleges demand for products that are not necessarily part of their syllabus;
probably for high-level projects.
Made in India. From basic concept development to circuit design, fabrication
and testing, all training products that we supply are made in-house. At the
component level, we do import some of these.
—K. Vijayasree, general manager, Lab Electronics
www.efymag.com
statement of purpose. Engineering graduates
too can opt for specialised courses at training institutes to supercharge their skills and
land up with the right job profile, depending
on their area of interest.
With the aim to achieve the best possible
results from employees, companies also offer training in newer areas to their existing
workforce, to help them boost their skills,
eventually leading to the company’s growth.
Let us take a look at the current demand
trends in training courses for professionals
and graduates, with respect to the electronics industry. We also emphasise on some
emerging business models, new courses and
geographic trends, while highlighting the
scenario in the training field.
Changing trends and new courses
Technology is constantly changing. Hence, it
is important for professionals and graduates
to expand and upgrade their existing skills.
To meet and keep up to date with demand,
training institutes also look to revise the curriculum of their courses on a regular basis.
The trend is to make programs specific
to the demand of the industry. Jayant Singh
Kaintura, head - learning and development,
Tevatron Technologies, says, “We focus on
introducing courses based on the current
scenario of the industry.” He adds, “This
year, we have introduced specialised training [courses] on drone surveillance systems,
STM 32-bit ARM processors, system verilog
certificate course in functional verification,
Internet of Things (IoT) and computer-aided
design (CAD).”
Venkatesh Prasad, CEO, RV-VLSI, says,
“The change in demand, from our perspective, is that, we are starting to see a lot of
interest in the industry for back-end courses.
By back-end I mean full-custom physical intellectual property (IP) development
such as standard cells, memory layout and
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Point of view: Why e-training ecosystem is important
Technology is advancing at lightning speed. First, it was the rise of robotics, then
mechatronics and now the Internet of Things (IoT). This diverse growth and amalgamation
of technologies has left the engineers in a very difficult scenario; upgradation of skill set is
required at a similar pace, which is not possible with the curriculum academia provides or
the bird’s-eye view of the overall technology provided by academic organisations.
As far as India is concerned, the outcome of being a software-servicing Mecca of
the world is that, majority of engineers hardly get the right exposure to underlying system
designs, which prohibits India from further developing skilled manpower. Solving this
problem requires particular hands-on skills catered by vocational training institutes with
their brick and mortar system, who are already witnessing their own set of limitations. With
the ever-expanding Internet, people want to upgrade themselves on-the-go, and this need is
driving the e-learning ecosystem.
—Pranay Kishore, CEO and founder, Phi Education Solutions Pvt Ltd
(A Phi Robotics Research Enterprise)
input/output (I/O) layout designs.”
He adds, “We are also seeing a lot of
traction for application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) physical design
implementation at block level.”
Observing a rising demand for
verification training, Deepa J., manager - training, Sandeepani School of
VLSI and Embedded Systems Design,
says, “New verification methodologies have been introduced lately,
which are slowly being adopted by
companies. Earlier, we were much
more into training for IP verification.
Now, there is a lot more activity in
the systems on chip (SoC) verification space and we will be introducing
a course on SoC verification in the
near future.”
She adds, “Field programmable
gate array (FPGA) applications are
more prevalent now. Many embedded
applications use FPGAs. So, there is a
lot of demand for FPGA based training too.”
N. Arulselvan, director, Nettur
Technical Training Foundation, is
seeing an increasing demand in the
embedded system design. He says,
“There is an increased demand from
companies looking for electronics
graduates with software skills in embedded system design.”
He adds, “We have introduced
mechatronics in a big way. It is
becoming a popular choice among
people coming for training as compared to a course in electronics.” It
is a multi-disciplinary program with
electronics and mechanical aspects
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June 2015 | Electronics For You
Notable players dealing
in training products

Anshuman Tech Pvt Ltd

Dynalog (India) Ltd

Edkits Electronics

Kits‘n’Spares

Lab Electronics

Phi Education Solutions Pvt Ltd

Rhydo Technologies Pvt Ltd

Romtek India

Scientech Technologies Pvt Ltd

Vi Microsystems Pvt Ltd
mixed in the right proportion. “This
course is very useful for professionals
from sectors into machine tool building such as CNC machines, automobile as well as electronic products,”
he adds.
Tevatron Technologies too has
increased focus on providing training
on mechatronics. Kaintura informs,
“The course on mechatronics focuses
on CAD designing, electronic control
and PCB designing.” He adds, “We
provide mentorship to students working on projects not only through our
internal staff but also from highlyskilled engineers working in our
partner organisation. We are training
students on STM32 ARM processors
and helping them build projects
around these.”
There is a rise in professionals
working in non-core areas such as
the IT industry, looking to switch
over to the core sector. To address
this demand, Prasad says, “We have
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make in India
Point of view: Major consumers and demand trends
in educational training products industry
Technical training institutes are the largest contributors for growth in this segment. IITs, NITs,
private engineering under-graduate and post-graduate colleges, diploma colleges, vocational
training institutes and other universities are the main consumers. Private training institutes
also contribute to the consumption. Hobbyists are also contributing to consumption.
Presently, training systems around embedded systems (FPGAs, ARMs, VLSI, DSPs),
instrumentation, process-control, mechatronics and advanced communication are in great
demand. There is a steady demand for conventional technologies like microprocessor and
microcontroller products. These demands are market-driven since the industry is looking
for workforce trained with one of the above technologies to cut-short their in-company
training requirements.
—Rajesh Suresh Joshi, director, Dynalog Didactic Solutions Pvt Ltd
Find the right training
institute with EFY’s
Training Institute Finder
With the capability to search for training
institutes city-wise, course-wise and
name-wise, Training Institute Finder was
created to make it easy for aspirants
looking to enrol in an electronics-related
course. Currently in its beta version, it
provides a comprehensive listing of 550
institutes in India. This facility can be
found at www.electronicsforu.com under
Finder tab.
started weekend programmes for
such professionals. They get trained
on core aspects of VLSI design.”
Seeing the rising demand from
the industry for professionals trained
in embedded electronics, RV-VLSI
has also launched an embedded
programme keeping in mind the
requirements of the industry. “Our
embedded courses are designed to
make people specialists in areas of
firmware development, network stack
engineering, board support package
and Linux device driver development,” Prasad adds.
Steady growth, business-wise
Most engineering colleges and, to
some extent, polytechnic colleges
across the country have not connected students to the right kind of
job profile in the last three to four
years, feels Arulselvan. There is no
big growth in electronics-related
training as potential candidates are
getting diverted towards other job
profiles. He says, “There is a big percentage of electronic graduates who
are working in various industries like
IT and banking, except electronics.”
“There is lack of core engineering
jobs, which has a telling effect on
the admission for electronics-related
training courses,” he adds.
“NTTF is maintaining steady
business, although we are not seeing a big jump. We have not moved
away from our basic principle, which
is training for employability and
connecting them to the industry,”
informs Arulselvan.
Satish B.K., senior manager training services, Sandeepani School
of VLSI and Embedded Systems Design, says, “As a training institute, we
have definitely seen steady growth in
business.”
Business models
Talking about an emerging model at
Sandeepani School of VLSI and Embedded Systems Design, Satish says,
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“We are focusing on blended learning,
which is a combination of instructorled training (ILT) and supporting
students with learning management
systems (LMSes). This aims at providing trainees an out-of-the-classroom
kind of training experience, focusing
on self-paced learning (SPL).”
He adds, “Basically, it is a mix of
online and instructor training including hands-on, practical lab sessions.
We are trying to reach out to educational institutions and conduct training
courses in colleges as well to bridge
the industry-academia gap.”
Arulselvan identifies that the most
simple business model is to tie up with
the industry. He says, “We have tied
up with nearly 150 companies, which
regularly visit NTTF for recruitment.”
NTTF recently worked on a model
called Earn and Learn programme with
many companies. Based on Germany’s
dual education system, it allows people
to develop practical skills while working. “Students spend close to five days
a week in the industry, focusing on
manufacturing-related activities of the
company, and one to one-and-a-half
day is spent on training at our institute.
At the end of this four-year programme,
they get good industrial exposure and a
diploma certificate,” says Arulselvan.
He adds, “This programme is free of
cost and trainees are paid a stipend. It
has picked up very well in the last few
years.”
According to Prasad, the only business model which has survived the
test of time is setting up an industrylike atmosphere and working in partnership with colleges and universities.
He says, “RV-VLSI was set up in a
similar way. R.V. TRUST provided
the land and infrastructure, whereas
the technical expertise came from a
company of my own, Nanochip Solu-
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June 2015 | Electronics For You
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make in India
want to extend proficiency to 32-bit
controllers, which
is the latest in the
industry.”
With respect
Deepa J.,
K. Vijayasree, N. Arulselvan, Pranay Kishore, Rajesh Suresh
Satish B.K.,
Venkatesh
Jayant Singh
to training for stuCEO and founder,
manager
general manager,
director, Nettur
senior manager Prasad,
Joshi,
Kaintura,
dents, as mentioned
Phi Education
- training,
Lab Electronics
Technical
training services,
CEO, RV-VLSI
director, Dynalog
head - learning
Solutions Pvt Ltd
Sandeepani
Training
Sandeepani
Didactic
and development,
earlier, there is a
(A Phi Robotics
School of VLSI
Foundation
School of VLSI
Solutions
Tevatron
high demand for meResearch
and Embedded
and Embedded
Pvt Ltd
Technologies
Enterprise)
Systems Design
Systems Design
chatronics, as there
is a wider scope for
tions. Consequently, this allowed us from northern and southern parts of employment and the starting salto minimise our cost of operation and the country. Kaintura says, “Apart ary is very good. Arulselvan says, “A
offer quality programmes with the best from north and south India, this student, who has completed three
infrastructure, keeping the cost of the year we are also seeing interest from years of diploma in mechatroncourses competitive.”
the north-eastern states. Outside ics after his tenth grade, can earn
He adds, “Most of the money is India, we have started getting re- anywhere between ` 22,000 and
spent on capital expenditure if one sponses from Greece, Sri Lanka and ` 28,000 per month at an entrylevel.” Students looking to pursue
plans to set up a 465sqm (5000-square- Brazil.”
feet) to 557sqm (6000-square-feet)
Satish says, “We see a lot of stu- their masters abroad are also enrolling
training facility in Bengaluru. If that dents coming from Andhra Pradesh, for professional development courses.
can be avoided, it can be valuable Telangana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu
for the students.” Going forward, he and Karnataka. We also have con- Need for quality institutes
predicts that an integrated programme siderable students from north Indian Industry experts feel that the market
with colleges by private players will be states like Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and size is huge in India in terms of stuthe way to go.
Assam.”
dents and professionals, but there are
Virtual-instructor-lead training
Prasad notes, “We are seeing
very few good quality training institu(VILT) is another model adopted by many students from Andhra Pradesh tions here. Many institutions do not
institutes for training industry profes- and Delhi-NCR region showing a lot provide relevant training. Experts feel
sionals. Satish says, “Virtual training of interest in our courses. Generally, that some institutes provide irrelevant
is mostly for professionals, working on about 60 per cent of our students are training and there is no connection
projects, who cannot afford to spend from out of Bengaluru.”
between the training and industry
two or three days at an institute.”
requirement.
Talking about Tevatron Technolo- Training for professionals
The focus should be on taking the
gies, Kaintura informs, “This year we Industry experts feel that corporate electronics industry to a new level by
would also be starting to provide dis- training is on the right track. “NTTF imparting training on latest concepts,
tance education in VLSI design and is doing a lot of training for major to students and professionals, keepverification, embedded systems, robot- companies into services and manu- ing in mind industry trends. Kaintura
ics, mechatronics and functional verifi- facturing. Due to continuous tech- says, “Students tend to think that
cation. We are working on a complete nology upgradation, there is always there is a lack of job opportunities
package where students can learn from demand from corporates for training in the electronics industry. But if the
anywhere.”
their existing employees,” informs right kind of mentorship can be provided to them, it would be possible to
Arulselvan.
Geographically speaking
Satish too observes a rise in connect them to the right job profile.”
Looking into the future, e-learning
Talking about NTTF, Arulselvan notes, demand for professional training.
“Even though our training centre is He says, “Public and private sector will emerge as a strong training
in Bengaluru, we are getting a lot of companies are looking to train their methodology, believes Rajesh Suresh
students from Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa employees to bridge the gap created Joshi, director, Dynalog Didactic Solutions Pvt Ltd. He says, “Tax relief
and Uttar Pradesh.” He adds, “Although by changes in technology.”
Professionals are always looking to the industry providing educational
we have three centres in Jharkand, due
to an overwhelming response, we direct to upgrade their skills in this indus- training systems would also help in
effective cost control, resulting in
try, notes Kaintura. He says, “For
them to our other locations.”
Some training institutes are ob- instance, if an engineer is working on large-scale adoption of newer techserving an equal influx of students 8-bit or 16-bit MCUs, he or she would nologies.” 
Major Contributors to this Report
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