A four-day Faculty workshop on Soft Skills Development was organized by the ICFAI National College, Coimbatore recently.

Opening the workshop R. Nandagopal, PSG director of the Institute of Management Studies, said that systems management training has been a great demand for students.

This led to engage highly qualified and talented faculty, he said.

From management tend to more graduates find a job to go into teaching.

This led to what the large gap between supply and demand in educational institutions, he said.

The Department of Adult and Continuing Education of Andhra University will take up several activities with the help of Rs.14.25 lakh fund released by UGC under the 10th Plan, said vice-chancellor L. Venugopal Reddy at a press conference here on Thursday.

The activities included adult literacy classes for about 100 Class IV staff of AU, seminars, workshops and orientation programmes and conducting short-term certificate courses. Six programme coordinators were appointed to conduct the activities.

Principal of AU College of Arts and Commerce J.V. Prabhakara Rao and HoD of Adult and Continuing Education Y. Bhaskaracharylu were present at the press conference.

While a survey on socio-economic, health and educational aspects of class IV employees of AU commenced on September 11, the adult literacy classes would commence on Sept. 25, followed by an orientation programme for lecturers on community awareness programmes on Sept.27.

The other programmes to be taken up were seminars on strategies for involvement of adult education in student counselling and career guidance and on teaching activities, the latter in collaboration with the All India Council of Mass Education and Development, workshop on strategies for socio-economic development of Scheduled Tribes with special focus on literacy among others. Short-term courses would be conducted in fashion technology, hotel management, beauty and health care, pre-school teachers training, photography, interior decoration, fabric painting, English and public speaking, communication skills and personality development and fundamentals of arithmetic and reasoning.