Bangalore, April 18 (IANS) Wipro’s trust Mission 10x has tied up with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) to enhance skills of engineering graduates in IT and related sectors, the global software major said Monday.

 
 "The joint initiative will offer skill development programmes such as 'foundation skills in IT' to train engineering graduates for suitable employability in the burgeoning tech industry. Nasscom’s assessment of competence technology will be used to assess their skills through diagnostic test and final test," Wipro human resources vice-president Pratik Kumar said in a statement here.
 
 About 550,000 engineering graduates pass out every year from about 3,000 engineering colleges in the country. Though India has one of the world's largest scientific and engineering pools, the growing demand-supply gap for skilled, industry-oriented professionals is expected to test the limits of its manpower development capabilities.
 
 The programmes will support deployment of e-learning content for faculty capability building like 'Aarambh' and promote a 'unified learning kit' to reduce the gap between academia and industry practices in multiple engineering disciplines.
 
 "The industry has been investing in the skill development of employees through in-house training programmes and certification courses. To ensure scalability, we are working with various government bodies, members of the academia and the IT-BPO industry to enhance employability skills amongst its prospective workforce," Nasscom president Som Mittal said.
 
 Launched on Teachers’ Day Sep 5 2007, the not-for-profit Mission10x empowered over 13,000 faculty members in the innovative learning approach.
 
 "The programme will provide an equal opportunity to aspirants from different parts of the country who wish to join the IT industry," Pratik Kumar added.