BANGALORE: On Wednesday the St Joseph’s College announced that it will start offering certificate courses and diploma classes to their students and outsiders. At present St Joseph’s College offers certificate courses classes only on weekends and public holidays. They also offer classes for these short term courses after regular weekdays classes are dispersed.

Addressing a college event, Dr Daniel Fernandez, St Joseph’s College’s Principal said, “These courses were long due to be opened for not only St Joseph’s students but for those also that comes from other cities and states of India. We will be offering certificate courses classes to all the aspiring students who wish to benefit from the program.”

Generally certificate and diploma courses are offered as a part of academic autonomy of the college. However, at the Christian College of Chennai has been providing short-term crash courses since 1984 that are job oriented and can be joined by students who are interested in part-time courses.

Mr. Alexander Jesudasan, Principal of Madras Christian College says, “So, far our short terms courses have benefited thousands of students. We have also recently started a Community College to offer computer hardware, networking and health assistant certificate courses.

On the basis of job opportunities, these certificate courses are preferred by those students who don’t have a diploma or degree because they carry sufficient merit of their own.

Alexander Jesudasan says, “College students who are not able to pursue their higher education or degree programs due to financial and personal problems will be easily able to join these certificate courses, which would help them to get employment.”