In a major effort to offer the industry ready candidates to the biotech sector, the Karnataka government is investing Rs 10 crore to set up ten Finishing Schools. The schools will be established with appropriate course content and duration to equip students particularly graduates and post graduates with necessary employable skills to make them industry ready.

To begin with the government will promote the finishing school promoted by the Association of Biotechnology Led Entrepreneurs and the Vision Group on Biotechnology.

The Finishing School will have to seek ABLE’s recognition and accreditation from a recognized university. The state government will provide financial support to each of the Finishing Schools towards setting up necessary lab instrumentation and other technology related gadgets and equipment required to train the students. State support will be limited to 25 per cent of the cost with maximum assistance of Rs 1 crore for each Biotech Finishing School, said Karnataka principal secretary for IT, BT, S&T Ashok Kumar C Manoli told Pharmabiz.

So long the biotech industry has lamented on the quality of biotech graduates that are unemployable. Their skills are not adequate for current challenging requirements. In spite of large investments in various branches of biotechnology and companies growing in large numbers and in size, lack of trained manpower was proving to be a bottle neck for the future growth, he added.

According to the state department of IT, BT S&T there are 2 lakh people employed in the biotech sector across the country and there is an immediate need for 10,000 people to be hired. The government is of the opinion that the Finishing School fulfil the manpower shortage. There are significant developments seen in specialized sectors. These cover clinical research data mining, genomics, biological data, disease to DNA sequence level research and analysis. There are also job openings in the R&D, quality control and manufacturing and marketing at companies and government institutions. The Finishing School will help the polish the skills and provide the talented workforce to the industry. Currently, although there are graduates passing out of the colleges, the demand overshooting the supply is higher in biotechnology than in information technology.

In 2007, the state had made all efforts to open a Finishing School in Biotechnology at the People Education Society IT (PESIT) College in Bangalore. The school was expected to generate 5,000 to 10,000 trained manpower annually. The candidates were to be chosen through an entrance test and jobs were guaranteed to those who qualified successfully out of the school. But the Finishing School could not take off. Now the government has once again made concerted efforts to announce the initiative, said biotech industry officials.