Bhubaneswar, Jan. 6: The Ramadevi Women's University, in partnership with the Centurion University of Technology and Management, today launched a skill enhancement certificate course for the varsity's undergraduate students.

The certificate course aims to provide hands-on-experience, practical training and experience-based learning to help the students get better employment opportunities.

The programme intends to ensure employability and entrepreneurship through vocational training and skill education in three different sub-skills. The first consists of bakery, chocolate-making and entrepreneurship development. The second course includes coffee processing, spices and cereal powder processing and entrepreneurship development, while the third is on beauty and wellness as well as entrepreneurship development.

"The course was launched on a pilot basis under the higher education department's sponsorship. It will provide the trainees with an exposure to a learning process that can contribute to economic growth and social development," said Centurion University's course director Subrat Dash.

"About 660 undergraduate students of the university will be trained on selected vocational skills for 30 hours that can be used for career growth or potential entrepreneurship," saidRamadevi university vice-chancellor Padmaja Mishra.

The 30-hour course will include 10 hours of theory and 20 hours of practical training. A 50-mark examination will be conducted with 20 marks for the theory and 20 marks for the practical. To pass the examination, a student must score at least 20 marks. Each batch will have 30 trainees and there will be a total of 22 batches.

While, the theory classes will be held at the Ramadevi Women's University, the practicals will be conducted at the Centurion University.

A bus from the Centurion University will ferry the Ramadevi students from the city to its campus for the practical training. Upon completion of the course, the students will be provided with a certificate signed by both the universities.

"If the pilot course proves to be a success, we intend to launch it in other constituent colleges under the university," said the vice-chancellor.