Career Counselling and Planning Centre (CCPC) of the University of Kashmir was established in 2004 and has since then been actively involved with career counselling, planning, placements, coaching for competitive examinations, hand-holding and guidance of students. Centre has been working hard to achieve its vision of attaining the status of a well-recognized centre of excellence for career education, coaching, training & placements, nurturing, grooming and guiding youth in their transformation as professional leaders to serve the society in diverse capacities. In pursuit of this mission, we have been organizing training workshops, job fairs and recruitment drives from time to time in order to help prepare students for their placement and support them in their careers. Besides the Centre has been imparting coaching for various competitive examinations like IAS/KAS/NEET/JEE/UGC-NET/JRF/CMAT etc. Recently when results of JKAS preliminary examination of 2022 were declared on August 17th, ten of our trainees passed the preliminary examination. Earlier many of our pass-outs have emerged successful in various national level competitive examinations. Earlier this year we provided coaching for IAS and JKAS Examination to a total of 50 students absolutely free of cost on the basis of financial assistance received from Central Wakf Council, New Delhi. This year we will provide coaching for IAS and JKAS examinations of 2023 to a total of 100 students and for NEET/JEE Examinations of 2023 to another 100 students selected by the Dept. of Tribal Affairs, J&K Govt. under its Parvaaz scheme of Mission Youth JK. A total of 100 students have been allocated to our centre for IAS/JKAS coaching under this scheme that will be started very soon.
Centre has nominated a team of 66 Career Counsellors from various departments and centres of the main and satellite campuses of the university. Soon after I took over as Director of this Centre last year we got all our Career Counsellors and placement officers professionally trained and certified in career counselling, first through a reputed coaching academy Mindler followed by TASL (Tata Advanced Systems Limited, Hyderabad), so that they could effectively and proficiently deliver back at their respective departments. CCPC has also been offering comprehensive coaching of the best quality for competitive examinations so that a sizeable number of its trainees qualify civil services and other competitive examinations. It has been our endeavour to create appropriate communication channels for the students on social media platforms like Facebook through which they could be constantly kept informed about fully funded scholarships, fellowships, placement and career opportunities for higher education both within and outside the country so that a large number of them pursue higher education at institutions of international repute without any financial burden and seek the best possible education at best institutions of the world. This year we have conducted Career Counselling sessions at Mallinson Girls High School, Govt. Higher Secondary School, Tangdhar, Islamia College, Srinagar etc. A Motivational Session on "Goal-Setting in Career and Life" by Mr. Rizwan Uddin, Commissioner, Provident Fund, EPFO, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh was also organized by the Centre on May 23rd, 2022 at CCPC. We have also conducted numerous webinars and motivational sessions online for stress management and psychological counselling, goal-setting and career mapping of students. I believe this Centre can also contribute significantly towards engagement and active participation of the students in various exchange programmes, seminars/workshops/conferences, entrepreneurship and skill development activities, exposure tours, internships, sports and other competitions besides innovative start-ups and industry visits.
Over the past one-year CCPC has conducted a series of campus recruitment drives with Tata Advanced Systems Ltd., Hyderabad, Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, Serve Staffing Pvt. Ltd., Hoping Minds Pvt. Ltd., Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd, IQVIA Pharmaceuticals and ExtraMarks Pvt. Ltd. and in future too CCPC contemplates to approach top notch corporates of the private sector in India for conducting on-campus recruitment drives at regular intervals and engage our enterprising youth in their corporate affairs. We will continue to work with same zeal, zest and dedication in days to come to take our Centre to new heights of achievement and excellence under the patronage and guidance of our dynamic and visionary leaders like Prof. Nilofer Khan, Prof. Farooq Ahmad Masoodi and Dr. Nisar Ahmad Mir.
In order “to develop stronger linkages with local industry for providing employable work force to the new projects from within the Union Territory”, our Centre has signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with industry partners as detailed below:
1. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Mumbai, on February 18, 2022 with a view to focus on employability, entrepreneurship, skill development of our students and carry out TCS CSR programs for our university students that will help them to develop twenty first century skills required to be successful in the digital economy through following skill enhancement and entrepreneurship development programmes:
a. Youth Employment Programme
b. Go IT and Ignite My Future Programme
c. Adult Literacy Programme
d. Bridge IT Programme – Pilot Model specially curated on Tourism
2. Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), Hyderabad, on March 18th, 2021 for below mentioned industry-oriented services:
a. Support
in strengthening the existing career counselling services of the University of
Kashmir
b. Create
awareness about emerging perspectives of careers by conducting
industry-academia interface meetings.
c. Support group counselling sessions for students to support their selection in employable domains.
3. Stribes Deep Minds Innovations Pvt. Limited on December 18, 2021 for below mentioned industry-oriented activities:
a. Facilitating industry engagements like leadership
talks, brand story-telling, potential internship projects and
incubation/R&D opportunities for students of the University of Kashmir.
b. Facilitating
industry driven advanced skilling, master class sessions exclusively for
students with a view to hone their skills and make them industry ready.
d. Execution
of sponsored activities like contests, campaigns and exclusive offers for
students.
e. Encouraging industry for special placement drives for the students of the University.
Apart from these three MoUs, this Centre has also entered into informal collaboration with several private institutions/organizations over the past one year like ClicksCampus Pvt. Ltd., Codequotient Pvt. Ltd., HopingMinds Pvt. Ltd., StaffServing Pvt. Ltd., SalesShark Pvt. Ltd., LearnDesk Pvt. Ltd., Whizkid Pvt. Ltd. etc for training and subsequent placement of our students in the industry at zero cost to the students. Almost 2000 registrations have been received for the workshop so far from different schools, colleges and universities of Kashmir. Workshop will be spread over three days with day one dedicated to the students of Social Sciences, day two for the students of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and day three for the students of Arts and Humanities.
Earlier
we have organized a similar day-long mentoring session in collaboration with
Project Eduaccess in this very hall on May 9, 2022 and this is the second such
event with project Eduaccess though this time it is of three-days duration.
During this three-day workshop sessions will be conducted by the pass-outs
of some of the reputed international universities like Oxford University,
Cambridge University, London University, UNSW Australia, Milano and Durham
University. Besides informing the participants about the opportunities for
higher studies and fully funded scholarships, fellowships and internships
abroad, they will also be provided useful information about CV writing, English
language tests, writing personal statements (SOPs), making Ph.D. applications
and applications for funding. Some of the eminent speakers of Project Eduaccess
team who are scheduled to speak during this three-day workshop include
Misbah Reshi, Sameer Rashid, Muda Tariq, Imad-ul-Riyaz, Samia Mehraj, Sadaf
Mir, Suhail Rashid Bhat, Gayathree Devi KT, Ifsha Zehra, Ubaid Shah, Muzaffar
Shah, Arooj Khalil and Maria Shawl. During this programme mentees will
receive support and guidance to make applications towards premier institutes
like that of the University of Oxford, Cambridge, LSE etc as well as towards
reputed scholarships. Mentees will also receive one-on-one mentorship support
on all aspects of UK admission processes, including identifying degrees and/or
universities of relevance, advice with application documents, preparing for interviews
etc. Registered participants of this workshop will be provided individual
feedback on their resumes. This workshop is being organised through a generous
grant from the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust, Somerville College,
University of Oxford. Dr. Sameer Rashid will tell us more about Project
Eduaccess and its sphere of activities.
