The Centre proposes to extend its Board of Apprenticeship Training programme for engineering graduates to arts and science students, a senior official said.

The programme implemented by the Union Human Resource and Development Ministry offers training to engineering graduates so as to make them employable.

“There is a proposal to bring the arts and science graduates also under the scheme…The Ministry of HRD has taken the initiative”, A Ayyakannu, Director of Board of Apprenticeship Training (Southern Region), an autonomous body of HRD, told reporters in Chennai.

He said 80 per cent of the students passing out of colleges were from arts and science streams.

“There is also huge demand for them (arts and science graduates) particularly in the insurance, banking, BPO (business process outsourcing) industries”, he said.

The official was in Chennai to announce the launch of a web portal www.boat-srp.com which would bring unemployed youths and industry and the academia under one platform.

“This is part of the e-governance initiative…The web portal will bring the students, institutions and industries under one platform. It will provide information on available vacancies in industries and expected qualification,” he said.

The portal is being developed by a telecommunication service provider at a cost of Rs 14.5 lakh and by 1st January, 2011 it will be launched officially, he said.

Under the Board of Apprenticeship Training, over 1.36 lakh students were covered last year and the target for the next year had been set at two lakh.