Analytics firm Tableau has partnered with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Education, Government of India to equip students and educators from AICTE’s over 10,500 higher learning institutes with modern data analytics skills.

       Through the partnership, AICTE plans to train 500,000 students and faculty over the next two years, said Buddha Chandrashekhar, Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE.

       "That's a great goal, that’s the target we picked up for the next two years. We need to go step by step. We will...by the end of two years, train more than 5 lakh students to get empowered by using Tableau," he added.

       Through this partnership, Tableau will provide AICTE with Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep licenses, access to eLearning, and sample curriculum material co-created with University professors for educators to get started teaching analytics in classrooms.

       AICTE has selected over 200 educators as Tableau Champions to teach 1-2 other educators from each higher learning institute through a series of workshops and e-learning curriculum.

       The idea, from an education point of view, is to make students industry-ready by providing them with analytics know-how, said Chandrashekhar.

       "And after the introduction of 5G, there are several reports which talk about the increase in the employability options in the data and data analytics field. We want to empower our students and faculty in a way that they will get better opportunities in the future. That's where we see the opportunity to work with Tableau, which has a parent company like Salesforce and has an amazing brand across the globe," he added.

       Tableau was acquired by Salesforce in 2019.

       The educators trained by Tableau will create courses for students to learn data skills with Tableau.

       There remains a growing need to bridge the data skills gap in India. Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2021 revealed how Indians, despite showing high proficiency in machine learning and mathematics, ranked low in data analysis and data visualization skills proficiency at 25 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.

       “We have seen this (kind of partnership) work for us in management institutes like SP Jain and ISB etc. When we acknowledge the faculty, it’s not just about teaching students the tool, it is about how we embed this in their learning process so that it becomes core to their learning curriculum, and they use it as part of the whole college experience,” said Anand Ekambaram, Country Manager India, Tableau.

       He added that Tableau's software is "completely function-agnostic," and would help students in their future endeavours, regardless of whether they are an engineer, on the production floor, sales, marketing, human resources or finance.

       The partnership will help students build their analytical skills ability, he said.