BENGALURU: Colleges in the city are starting to wholeheartedly accept the idea of online internships. A recent letter from the University Grants Commission (UGC) has given traction to the idea. In a letter to vice-chancellors of various universities, UGC secretary Rajnish Jain, laid out certain measures for internships in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them were allowing students to take up online internships or activities, including activities that can be carried out digitally or otherwise at home and engaging them to work as interns on ongoing projects.
Varalaxmi, head of internships at Jain University, said internships played a huge role in the placement of students or providing them with exposure. She said that students had already enrolled for online internships and even companies that regularly come to the campus have started offering interns online roles. “Many are to do with data analysis and market research,” she said.
Bangalore Central University recently collaborated with the online platform Guided Interns for internships and e-training across various sectors. Amrit Jaidka Arora, head of human resources at Digit Insurance, told TNIE that their interns were enrolled in virtual projects.
Head of QuikrJobs Amit Jain said that he observed an increase in the number of virtual jobs including data entry /back office and marketing among others since the lockdown, and that the trend will continue. JobsForHer, an online career platform for women, observed that there were many female applicants for job roles such as journalists, editors and content writers among others.