From Stenographers Guild to the Guild of IT

Year 1937, the trend was shorthand. Identifying areas where there is high employment potential is Chennai based The Stenographer's Guild, a registered society under the Societies' Registration Act 1860. The society was started by the Chief Minister C Rajagopalachari of the then Madras Province to provide training and employment in high speed writing in short hand. 

In 1984, PC made its penetration. Realizing the feasibility offered by computers, the Guild started offering courses in computer from 1987. From then it has been offering courses like - DBase & FoxPro, MS Office (MS Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Internet and email), Oracle, multimedia, C & C ++, JAVA, web and graphic designing, e-commerce, WAP technology, etc. Said SV Ramaswamy, President, The Stenographers' Guild, "When companies started asking us for stenographers with computer knowledge we thought of tapping this segment. In the area of secretaryship training course, we have introduced computer education to produce secretaries with many high level computer literacy." 

True that with the advent of computers, the demand for courses like stenography and typewriting has drastically fallen down, especially typewriting, which has come to a full stop. Where majority of the typewriting cum stenographic institutions are closing shops, The Stenographers' Guild has faced the tide by trying new avenues, which offer job opportunities to the youth. Ramaswamy strongly believes that there are high employment opportunities for the young and most of the pass outs from the institute are already employed in many multi-national companies, public and private sector companies. Simultaneously, the Guild is running a free placement bureau right from its inception. The students who study in the Guild are able to get employment through this placement cell. The Guild does not charge any fees either from the candidates or from the companies for this service. 

Recently it has also started a call center training course. The fee for the one-month course is Rs 1,500. In a short period of time the Guild has trained 110 candidates and provided placement for 80 of them. "But the demand for call center agents is in 100s and we are not able to meet their needs," added Ramaswamy. The students are offered training in American accent and culture, Customer Relationship management, Telephone skills, Internet, emails, communication skills, etc. The skills that are being offered are necessary skills required for any job, said
Ramaswamy. 

Following call center, biotechnology according to Ramaswamy has a resounding future. Therefore, the guild is thinking of introducing course in Biotechnology for students with science background. The courses at The Stenographers' Guild are being provided at a very subsidized rates since its being sponsored by many government departments like - The Department of Backward Class and Schedule Caste, Adidravida Welfare Department of Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women, etc. 

Nisha Kurian 

(CNS)