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NIIT short-course enrolment falls

NIIT Ltd, India's largest computer education firm, said there has been a sharp reduction in the number of candidates seeking its short-term courses as a result of a slowdown in the global software industry, a business daily reported on Thursday.

The Financial Express newspaper quoted NIIT's senior vice president of education programmes Pradeep Narayan as saying there had been a 20 per cent fall in the number of candidates enrolling in short-term IT courses due to a downturn in the software sector.

However, enrolment in NIIT's longer-term courses continued to grow at a consistent and impressive rate, the paper quoted Narayan as saying.

No company official was immediately available to comment on the report.

The paper also said that NIIT plans to double the number of its education centres in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to 200 in the next two years.

The 19-year-old firm has more than 2,228 computer education centres, including 100 abroad, and also provides software services to clients such as British Airways.

Overall NIIT has a target of 3,000 centres by end-September, the end of its financial year.

Another newspaper, the Business Line, quoted an NIIT official as saying the firm intended to increase its presence to 300 centres in the east and the north-east India and to open 75 new centres in Bangladesh.

There are now 11 NIIT education centres in Bangladesh.

NIIT would penetrate smaller towns with a population of less than 50,000 people, the paper said.

Shares of NIIT ended 8.07 per cent higher at Rs 374.20 on Wednesday, in a flat market.

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