Case Study

Case StudyOn

“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Instruments”“MS in Software Engineering Program” Offered By

Wipro Technologies Ltd, IndiaAnd

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

Case StudyOn

“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Instruments”“MS in Software Engineering Program” Offered By Wipro

Technologies Ltd, India and BITS, PilaniBy

Prologue:

This case study takes the opportunity to discuss the Social, Technological, Organizational implications of the new occupational instruments such as “Collaborative Academic – Occupational Programs” offered jointly by professional business organizations in tie up with universities. The purpose of this study was to understand the underlying benefits and opportunities of such instruments for the business organization and the society. The study take the approach of dismantle the system to analyze the working of the system, trying to analyze what all factors in the Indian Legal , Labor system, the Indian society attribute for such instruments to run successfully .

The case study has been developed based on analysis of one such collaborative program offered by Wipro Technologies Limited, India and Birla Institute of Technologies, Pilani, India. The study has been done considering both management and student perspective. It consists of comparative study of other contemporary similar opportunities in other organizations like Patni, HCL, MBT, CTS etc.

The most important discovery of this study was the fact how these powerful business organizations have been successfully utilizing these collaborative instruments to disguise bonded labor in the name of education with the help of the shortcomings of the Indian legal and educational system, and exploit the socio-economical condition of the society of India. What has come out of this study is the fact that slavery and bonded labor, exploitation of the human beings in our modern societies are still prevalent at large in disguise of such “Collaborative Programs” etc. As a part of developing this study

loopholes and issues of immediate concern in the Indian Education System and Indian Legal System especially pertaining to Labor laws and Education policies were exposed and have been brought forward.

This organizational study has made it possible to understand the management dynamics in an organization. It also sheds light on how academic management is totally different from business management and both need to be addressed separately and should be managed by people who are formally qualified by education or experience in the respective domain to take on those responsibility i.e. Academicians should be responsible for Academic affairs, while a Business Manager should be responsible for Business affairs while an Engineering Graduate should be responsible for the technological affairs of an organization. The study helps us to visualize the disparity created by the highly hierarchical organizational structure and unequal distribution of powers amongst rank and effect of such an arrangement on the organization. It also emphasis on the fair and equally accessible ombudsmen likes process in organizations and also in society for checking the wrong and injustice in the system. What more importantly has come up is the fact that absence of sense of collaborative and sharing spirit in India MNC, as an especial example Wipro Technologies Ltd, which severely lacks collaborative spirit, due to its highly stringent hierarchical organizational structure. What finally needs to be realized is to grow in today’s modern world, for Indian MNC to become global leaders of the future, for innovations to happen, collaboration and partnership is the only key strategy.

On the Indian educational system front one has to appreciate the widely acknowledge the fact that even thought the Indian education system is one of the most rigorous systems in the world, its highly under appreciated and under valued in India than abroad. Indian students have preformed extremely well in universities abroad. Even with the lack of enabling environment like the funds and scholarship, lack of infrastructure, lack of educational facilities, prevalent reservation and quota system and overall scarcity in the terms of infrastructure to pursue quality; the Indian education system actually breeds out some of the most talented people in the world. The

What needs to be understood is a lot of initiatives towards betterment of the Indian Education System and Indian Labor system has to come from both citizens of this country and the government. Initiatives in the field of education are required in direction of increasing the quality of our higher education, embodying the research and development methodology in each course of study to create more intellectual property, making Indian system compatible with international system. Indian education system is strong but lacks marketing. Chinese model,

where by the extensive initiative of Chinese government and Chinese university Chinese students now have a global presence, this has helped the country in developing great intellectual and cultural wealth, as well as technological advancement.

Definitions:

“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Program”: It’s a FULL – TIME WEEKEND CONTACT academic program for which contact sessions and examination are conducted on weekends, while the subject pursuing such an instrument exercises FULL – TIME EMPLOYMENT in the organization facilitating such a collaborative program offered by some university.

“Full – Time Employment”: It’s an instrument spread across a five day working week, & occasional weekends and other public holidays in which all subjects perform occupational activity, indiscriminately in accordance to their respective socio-technical skills. At least 9hrs/Day for 5 days i.e. 45 hours/week of occupational activity directed towards achievement of organizational business goals in general can be considered as FULL – TIME EMPLOYMENT.

The Background:

Wipro Technologies Ltd, India and BITS, Pilani “Collaborative Academic – Occupational” “MS in Software Engineering” Program was first started in 1995. Initially when it was started until 2002 – 2004 most of the recruitment for this instrument was primarily done from south India, perhaps due to strategic location of IT mega city around Bangalore, and also the fact of surplus engineering colleges in this region churning out excessive IT professionals. The WASE program is a four years program, at the end of four years the candidates are awarded MS in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani. Though this doesn’t guarantee the candidate would be absorbed in the organization as a regular employee after completing the WASE program. The absorbed candidates are absorbed in B1 band, i.e. the band for M.S/M.Tech fresher from outside and will start ground zero in the organization, without taking previous four years of occupational association with the organization into consideration. As per WASE candidates are designated as students in the organization, who compulsorily work full time in the organization from 8:30 – 6:00 on Weekdays as regular employees, while attend classes for the full time WASE MS program on Saturdays.

The WASE program from 1995 - 1998 was a four years MS program that gave its candidate a time advantage of one year over B.Sc

graduate with M.Tech from outside, which they would have completed in 4 Years i.e. 2 Years of M.Sc followed by 2 Years of M.Tech, while their WASE counterparts were confirmed employees of Wipro Technologies Ltd at the end of the third year itself. The instrument is targeted for B.Sc/BCA graduates primarily with specialization in Computer Science, Electronics, Mathematics, and Physics. Though almost all candidates joining such a program were from computer science background only. The Program Philosophy:

WASE was started in 1995 when the Indian IT industry was developing, so was the Indian education system with its reforms & revisions, and so was the global economy & more so Indian economy was changing. Wipro Technologies then was a small company as compared to as of now, Wipro was growing. It had just developed a corporate identity for itself; it had invented its corporate philosophy around principles like Integrity, Value - Value for Money, Customer Satisfaction and Innovation. These principals of corporate philosophy were taken more literarily whether they were meant in costumer - organization context or employee – organization context. Individual’s identity & importance in a crowd called organization were still existent. WASE was an innovative step, very close to heart of Wipro strategy. It was what the market/industry demanded, something unique, something new, and something radical. It then embodied in itself the principles of empowering its employees with higher and quality education, cost reduction for its customers, changing industry wide scenario by making it possible that after completing this collaborative program even the non engineering cadre would be capable to undertake demanding higher management roles in the organization. The quality, the innocence and sanctity of such instrument could & would have been boasted by all i.e. Wipro, IT industry, the subjects pursuing it, their families, everyone associated with it.

But the times have changed, its 2005, the Indian IT industry has matured, the education system has seen quantum rise, the graduates are better equipped both in terms of diversity & depth of knowledge, the job market is booming, the economy is evolving beautifully and its mature. Wipro Technologies has managed to grow into a global leader with more than 50,000 people employed with it, its revenue breaching $2 Billion mark and presence in over 26 countries spread across the globe, it’s truly a giant Indian MNC. The Wipro’s corporate philosophies of Integrity, Value, “Value for Money”, Customer Satisfaction and Innovation are still the same, as they have been the success mantra. But as the corporate has grown bigger and bigger, what seems like is that the corporate philosophies such as Integrity and Values perhaps

diluted and have become pretty questionable especially when taken in organization – employee context, especially when you talk about WASEians. The WASE principles also changed, they are more about cheap labor for working on legacy systems, testing, maintenance or anything other than core development, thus leading to cost reduction for Wipro’s customers. WASE principles like empowering employees with higher and quality education, empowering them to take on higher managerial jobs in the organization have become secondary or no existent entities. The quality, the exclusiveness; the sanctity of the program has diluted substantially so has its spirit, as the company has grown and the times have changed. It’s no longer a niche career option, neither does it give you any time advantage over a B.Sc graduate with a M.Sc post graduate degree followed by a M.Tech, nor employment experience as one has to start ground zero in the organization after completing the program.

No longer is WASE a matter of pride neither in eyes of the providers i.e. Wipro Technologies Ltd and BITS, Pilani nor it’s a matter of superiority - accomplishments for its candidates undergoing the MS program in hope to learn, develop and become global leaders, contributors to the community in form of technologist, innovators, social leaders. And it’s nothing more than a sham, a deceit in the eyes of their families who sacrifice so much in the hope to provide for good education for their offspring, feel cheated, extremely helpless, humiliated and angry. And the community remains deprived of the great thinkers and innovators who could have been born out of this instrument only if it was truthful in all its aspects. Although many might still appreciate the opportunity of being associated with such brands and instruments which certainly is an achievement considering the whole Indian system, though not comparatively evaluating and considering that other better contemporary opportunities exists. Also these questions arises is brand everything, are titles everything, “How good is an education if its not technically enlightening?”, “How good is an employment if it’s discriminatory and one’s service is not acknowledged?”. This kind of behavior/attitude is greatly influenced by the socio-economic factor of the non equalitarian, poverty laden Indian society. But then again this shouldn’t be used as a reason for exploitation of the society by organizations for their own benefits; rather organizations should shoulder the responsibility to take appropriate initiatives to eliminate such divides and provide equal treatment atleast inside the organization.

The Batches:

It started with a modest strength of 25 students in 1995, the strength now peaks around 700 odd pseudo students in 2004 - 2005, spread in

various locations across India i.e. Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore. The 2005 batch is the most cosmopolitan batch due to lot of recruitment from other parts of India and not just south India.

There was even a Gurgaon based batch of 50 such subjects in 2004, but just within one year the program in Gurgaon was terminated and all of them were transferred to other Wipro facilities in India i.e. Pune & Bangalore in a high drama episode that lasted a couple of weeks, without even discussing or stating the reasons for such orders, resulting in some of the students to quit/abandon the program due to their inability to relocate to other locations in India. What remains unanswered is, who is responsible for jeopardizing the careers of 7 such students, who were affected by the company’s decision to abandon the WASE in Gurgaon, Is It BITS, Pilani, or is it Wipro Technologies Ltd, or the Government of India?

The Candidate Profile:

The curriculum for M.S. in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani for WASE was designed for B.Sc graduates from Physics, Electronics, Math, Computer Science, but the fact is most of the people inducted are from Computer science background, approximately 99%. The program might be greatly technically enlightening Masters in Computer Sciences for Physics, Electronics, and Math graduates. But ever since IT has been on the Indian shores some of these Physics, Electronics, and Math graduates are actually highly equipped with Computer Science Fundamentals especially student from central universities like Delhi University. An general analysis of B.Sc Computer Science and BCA courses, yielded following results, it was observed that south India has good number of colleges, with decent infrastructure to facilitate immense learning, well qualified faculty to teach, but a B.Sc Computer Science/BCA course with average academic contents, which is fundamentally very strong but doesn’t offer anything beyond it, while on other hand North is plagued by scarcity of college (i.e. proportional to the number of candidates seeking admission to a particular course), extremely qualified faculty to teach, a strong social-political influence on academic institution, and a B.Sc Computer Science/BCA program with beyond average course contents which makes it fundamentally strong and beyond, with contents like advanced courses in Linear Algebra, Calculus, Numerical Methods, Algorithm, Artificial Intelligence, Neural Network, Compiler Design, Data Warehousing & Mining, Formal Automata. But even if its possible to scientifically rate these courses based on their content, you’ll find that as a matter of fact only a few universities across India which actually provide such academic programs at under – graduate level with extraordinary or rather

beyond average contents, example B.Sc Computer Science (Honors)/ erstwhile BIT course offered by Delhi University, BIS (Honors)/BCA offered by Indraprastha University, Delhi. The reason for stating above mentioned differences is not point out a north south divide, or to anyways establish any superiority based on regional grounds as it wouldn’t have any scientific basis. Its only to state the fact that people even though equipped with good B.Sc/BCA/BIS/BITS degree no matter from north or south are undergoing a collaborative program (WASE) that doesn’t technically award much to them.

Another aspect to evaluation of qualifications in the educational and professional system in India is, rather than evaluating the qualification based on technical content of the academic programs it’s evaluated on the basis of the name of the degree and its duration. Generally degrees are named accordingly to its content and its duration, but what needs to be considered is there should be a weighted approach to evaluate qualification which gives appropriate weightage to program contents, as well as its duration. Considering many BCA/B.Sc/BIS/BIT Computer Science degree are technically as sound as the B.Tech degree, this difference if any are even more miniscule if these programs are pursued in professional engineering college, which provides the same enabling environment in the form of similar curriculum, similar faculty, similar infrastructure for both B.Tech and BCA/BIS/B.Sc students. These programs differ from a B.Tech computer science program only in terms of duration, which again is induced due to presence of 6 month industrial internship period as a part of B.Tech curriculum.

The Program Duration:

On bond the program duration is exactly four years not a day less and not a day more, but in reality the program has been prolonged for many batches. The program duration is torturous awfully long four years. One might rather pursue an M.B.B.S and become a doctor which takes equivalently long time i.e. five years, if one would qualify for it. The program duration is four years and thus the candidates of this program have no competitive advantage over students pursuing full time M.S on campus. A B.Sc graduate after three years of graduate degree, followed by two years of Masters postgraduate degree, can pursue 2 years long M.Tech/M.E./M.S. degree, thus duration of postgraduate studies i.e. M.S adds up to four years anyways.

In 2005 due to delay in recruitment of WASE batch 2005 by Wipro Technologies Ltd, the third semester of WASE batch 2004 was delayed by almost 3 – 4 months. In an internal TTD mail the concern that the WASE 2004 batch program would be prolonged to 4.5 years was

communicated between all the TTD WASE coordinator at different locations. The irony is that this decision to prolong the WASE course by 6 months has not been disclosed to the WASEians as of the time of writing this case study. It’s a well planned corporate strategy not to disclose this news at this time, the reason being, firstly disclosing this news latter down the program say after fourth or fifth semester or even latter in the final year as it would not result in big backlash and WASEians quitting the program due to prolongation as it’ll be to late, as almost all WASEians would rather prefer to complete the program even if it takes six more months when one has already invested four awfully long years in the program. Secondly the organization has cheap labor for another six months. What is not addressed is who in the organization was responsible for such a big error, delaying and prolonging, and have they been penalized for their errors? If and How would the organization compensate for wastage of extremely precious time of 740 individuals due to prolongation due to failure of organizations processes?

The Application:

The whole process of recruiting for this instrument is done by the mixed means of on-campus & off-campus recruitment. The process includes a written examination with naïve aptitude and even more naïve technical questions, followed by a personal interview. The level of the written examination is so high that even a twelfth standard school kid could walk through it like a cake. It doesn’t have basic sections like fundamental logic, basic sciences, applied mathematic and calculus. The drop out rate for 2004 batch selected in a process in north India was as high as 4 out of 250. The minimum eligibility criterion for applying for WASE is just an overall 65% all through your schooling and graduation.

The Selection:

Once the candidates are selected, they are expected to report to the specified Wipro facilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune etc within 15 days. On landing in new city for joining, for your convenience no arrangements are made by the organization to accommodate you in the guest house or any hotel, though candidates would be reimbursed for first 8 days of hotel stay at the rate of $7/day. Considering the facts - the extremely low stipend received by the candidate, no settlement – relocation benefits for WASE employees from the organization, the ever increasing rentals it generally takes a minimum 1 month to find a decent, pocket friendly abode in a strange city, especially Bangalore. On contrary in a similar collaborative program offered by Mahindra British Telecom Limited and BITS, Pilani, candidates have to relocate to

an even more expensive city Mumbai, but the accommodation a 3 star apartment is provided by the organization itself for whole of their candidature term with the organization.

The Bond:

On the very day of induction process; the candidates are given a bond that they are supposed to sign then and there or else loose the opportunity. Unlike most companies where the prospective employees are given a time frame ranging from a week to a month to understand the implication of signing any such bond by consulting a legal authority on such matters, here the bond has to signed and returned at that very moment.

The bond states that in the case if a WASE candidate leaves the organization before four years, the candidate is subjected to pay a bond amount of $1,666 to the organization. The bond amount is $1,666 so if the candidate doesn’t have $1,666 to pay towards the bond in advance i.e. most candidate come from typical lower- middle class families, in that case for candidates inconvenience Wipro Technologies Ltd has a tie up with State Bank Of India, which facilitates such candidates to avail a loan of $1,555 INR against an upfront deposit of $112 (i.e. almost one month WASE stipend) with the SBI. What is to be noted is that the bond is not just in principles, there is real money involved in the form of a fixed deposit in SBI. In this case SBI pays an interest of 6.5%/Annum on the Fixed Deposit of 4 Years. For those who have taken the loan need not pay the principal amount i.e. 70,000 INR, but will have to pay a differential interest i.e. the interest you earn on Fixed Deposit 6.5%/Annum - Interest on the Loan i.e. 12%/Annum which amount to some $9/Month.

The interest paid by the WASEian can be counted as a premium paid towards the opportunity of working in a World Class firm like Wipro Technologies Ltd or as a price a candidate should pay for having coming from a not so well to do family and yet affording to work in expensive organization like Wipro Technologies.

What is ironical yet again is the bond is signed between the candidate and the organization but no copy of the bond is given to the candidate? On the contrary other organizations like HCL Technology, Mahindra British Telecom Limited, Cognizant Technology Systems Limited which also offer a similar collaborative program with BITS, Pilani have no such bond for its candidates.

What needs to be paid attention is the fact that most of these candidates come from a typical Indian middle class family. The legal

perspective to the bond raises another question i.e. “Is it a new phase in evolution of human civilization, where bonded labor & slavery is reemerging & flourishing in this form?” apparently it does seem like a new form of bonded labor. Even though employment bonds are illegal according to the Indian legal system and so is bonded employment but the failure of social institutes of the nation to organize employment sectors, failure of labor research institutes to bring about changes in labor laws of the country have left loop holes in the system. As a result huge organizations are able to take advantage of such failure of the system and get away with it.

The Training:

The selected candidates undergo a 3 months full time training. There are infact two trainings the first one is Fundamental Readiness Program (FRP) which is a 1 month training is common for all candidates, its an elementary training in Fundamentals of C, Digital Electronics, Fundamentals of Networking and Telecommunications etc the second training is Project Readiness Program (PRP) which is of 2 months duration, this training focuses on domain in which the candidate is deployed for instance Microsoft Technologies, Telecom and Embedded Systems, Java Technologies, Database, ERP and MIS systems. The curriculum for most these trainings are pretty decent, though there is a lot of scope for improvement. Both FRP and PRP have very limited hands on and practical training.

The training for the 2004 batch is generally conducted in Wipro campus, in IIITB and in institutes outside on contract bases. The training institutes include some decent institutes like CMC, and many others ill equipped under staffed institutes also. Attendance in such training is loosely monitored, and hands on practical sessions in ill equipped labs are just for the name sake.

Every candidate should complete both FRP and PRP in maximum three attempts each examination, the minimum criteria for passing FRP and PRP is 80%. On failure the subject would be entitled to termination of his/her candidature with the organization. Most of the candidates clear the FRP pretty easily i.e. in the first attempt itself, while the failure rate of PRP is considerably high. But the candidatures of the subjects who fail their PRP are generally not terminated and are allowed to continue in the organization. Which does raise questions about the training methodology and quality of human resource being inducted in the organization?

What also needs to be noticed is no consideration is given either to graduation specialization or to candidate’s aspiration while allocating

domains. It wouldn’t be surprising to find a candidate specializing in embedded system at graduate level working on mainframe technologies in banking and financial solutions domains, while a mechanical engineer would be deployed in project in embedded systems. It would seem as a sheer waste of talent and leads to high job dissatisfaction. Incase of normal employee this high degree of work dissatisfaction would lead to high attrition rates.

The Career Path:

What career path you can expect after completing the MS SE program or rather what career path you shouldn’t expect after completing this program?

On an average for most of the candidate successfully completing the program the answer to that crucial question would be:

1.)Completing this course doesn’t automatically destine the students to become a computer scientist, technologists. Lack of R&D component in the program is highly debilitating, incase graduates from this program want to seek career in high technology R&D.

2.) The course doesn’t equip you to work in Research and Development in areas of core computer sciences and allied domains like mathematics, computational science and engineering.

3.) Though the course and the work experience acquired in four years of this course does equip you to take on all possible odd IT jobs like programmer, tester, and architect.

4.) It narrows the candidate’s definition of IT to just Computer Science, Software Engineering And Management of Information System which is much broader than that and incorporates automation, solution to engineering & scientific processes and problems, applied computer sciences, Computation in Science and Engineering etc.

5.)Most of the successful candidates would end up as managers, analyst, architects in other companies. Which doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be then technically most superior specie in this space.

6.)An average candidate generally are not comparable with MS graduates from other world class universities like IIT, IIIT, NIT, BITS or any other international university. Yes not even BITS, the on-campus programs are technically more rewarding & demanding than WASE. Even though WASE collaborative program is considered and accredited by BITS, Pilani equivalent to the on campus program.

7.)Don’t expect to substitute four years of industry experience with the on-campus research and entrepreneur environment that one would have achieved if one had pursued in a regular full time on campus MS program.

The Curriculum:

The first two semester of M.S. focus on fundamental mathematics necessary for any computer scientist but the level of these courses are still very naïve. The courses in Discrete Mathematics, Calculus, Probability, and Numerical Methods are of the level offered at freshman year in most undergraduate courses which sometimes are still more advanced than that being offered at M.S. level. As far as computing skills are concerned the first four semester of the program offer you fundamentals of computer sciences by the means of subjects like Data Structure, Fundamentals of C Programming, Object Oriented Programming Using Java, Fundamental Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Operating System, Fundamental Computer Architecture, Computer Networking . Most of these subjects, and sometimes infact advanced studies in these subjects are already undertaken by most candidates in their under-graduate degree programs. All of this would really make more sense and be more useful if these subjects are offered as a refresher program for duration of 6 months to 1 year than spending 2 years on undergoing basic concept all over again that doesn’t help much to the cause of pursuing higher advanced studies.

The semester fifth onwards to the seventh semester the curriculum is more about software engineering practices, Object Oriented Analysis And Design, software quality, software project management.

The last semester is dissertation which has to be completed in the organization itself. The candidates don’t have any option of completing their dissertation in a Research and Development organization, or in international universities. So the scientific domains for investigation of these dissertations are very limited both in terms of diversity and depth. It’s rare to find a dissertation in high technology areas of applied computation such as Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, Computational Theory, Robotics, DSP, CFD, Data Ware Housing and Mining, Computational Science and Engineering, Computational Finance which are of high national and international importance because of their commercial and scientific richness.

The Hands on – Practical Sessions:

What is to be noted is there are no practical or hands on sessions for any of the subjects in the whole program. Its expected hands on experience would be gathered by candidates through the live projects they are working on. But again either most of the candidates don’t have a computer at their disposal at home and don’t have appropriate tools compliers, RAD tools at their disposal in office either. Considering

most candidates are working in specialized domains, it can’t be expected work experience and on job learning can substitute practical and hands on classroom sessions. Most engineering colleges and universities now have Wi-Fi enabled campuses and students are equipped with laptop, and given access to information highway to for 24/7 access to information and collaborative learning. Also there are no assignments, no case studies, no brain storming sessions and no real world applicability and problem solving sessions as a part of the whole course. The course contents are totally theoretical, and are not driven towards innovation and finding solutions real world problems.

The Contact:

The contact sessions on weekends i.e. Saturday consist of 2hrs lectures for 4 subjects given back to back after 50 Hours of hardcore work loaded week. The floating centre at Wipro Technologies, BDC where the classes for the program are conducted is architectural marvel. The people who have been around since August 2004 have seen it dying so many deaths, yet standing tall. It’s suffered water seepage, followed by degradation of wooden panels decorated with black fungus on it, collapsing false ceilings on the roof. It’s a centrally air conditioned facility. On Saturdays generally the strength of employees is considerably less thus perhaps as a cost cutting measure the air conditioning to floating centre holding around 400 students is either switched of or kept at a minimum low perhaps for maintenance activities or as an cost cutting measure. A class room is generally jam packed with 90 – 110 odd souls. Inadequate seating arrangement, no air conditioning, no windows, and no fans with Bangalore’s temperature touching a 33+ °C is the last thing these students expect after a hard weeks work.

The class rooms are equipped with modern wooden panels, lighting system, furniture, audio-visual systems, and computers. The computers are never powered, even if they are they are not configured to access internet, so the whole concept of having them there is defeated as neither they are used to perform hands on nor they can be used to access the information highway to research or explore the subject deeply. The projectors are used to display lecture and note presentation slides. Even though there is a provision to suspend the projectors from the roof, they are generally kept on the table in front row though, leading to a badly illuminated, glary, unaligned display on the screen. The electronic smart white boards are kept in each class only for technology demonstration; no one has actually ever seen them working. The markers are used by the professor to write on the white board instead, and are not much of help many times they are low on ink, secondly it doesn’t help when you’re sitting at 10+mts from the

board and in a class of hundred someone has to sit at back. The libraries are ill equipped and under stocked, even with quantum increase of intake of students the libraries haven’t been upgraded. The libraries are always severely short on books, leaving only one option with students to purchase their own books which adds an additional burden on them by almost $33/semester which becomes difficult considering the low stipend. The drinking water arrangement is a 25ltr water bottle outside each class, not even a cold water dispenser, which is supposed to sustain 80 students for 8-9 hrs. The rest rooms are badly equipped with toilet paper, soap, not even cleaned most of the time. But otherwise on weekdays the whole facility is rather well maintained, restrooms cleaned and replenished routinely, air conditioners running, water coolers running.

The Attendance:

BITS, Pilani provides its student an excellent enabling environment both for it’s on - campus and off – campus students. BITS, Pilani has no attendance policy for its students, that means students are not subjected to any penalties incase they don’t attend class. The philosophy is that the emphasis is on learning rather than how and where. But the whole philosophy changes in the Wipro campus, it really doesn’t matter what you learn or whether you learn or not but it does matter where you learn. A Wipro policy states that there is a minimum 75% attendance per subject is required to be eligible to give the semester exams, failure to adherence to the policy would mean ineligibility to give the semester exams. What more needs to be noted is no other factor like student’s grades, medical reason, and engagement in business activities for the organization itself, engagement of the candidate in an onsite assignment are generally taken into consideration while devising new punishments in failure to abide by this policy. There is a high probability of non adherence to the policy as practically speaking employees are involved in client projects with deadline and are at times working onsite in client locations. This policy is practiced pretty seriously, and has major implications, in the form of reduced onsite opportunities for WASEians due to high rate of approval rejection by Talent Transformation Department (a wing of Human Resource Management department in Wipro Technologies Ltd), which is mandatory for WASEians, unessicary prolongation of the course. The policy doesn’t make much sense as BITS Pilani clearly states the candidates undergoing the collaborative program are full time employees with the organization. Also the only way this policy can be interpreted is that any hard work or dedication towards work for the organization would result in penalty levied by the organization itself on its own employees, this generally a sign of lack of respect, trust in the employees by the organization.

In 2006 when WASE Talent Transformation Department was being headed by Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal and Mr. Kuruvilla Sebi 22 students of 2004 batch pursuing 3rd semester an 2 student from 2003 batch pursuing 5 semester were subjected to a punishment of dropping a year for falling short of attendance by just 3 days of the minimum 12 days required to satisfy the policy out of total 16 Days. Most of these cases were when these candidates were on official duty performing project work, helping the organization achieve its business goals. The punishment was more of a power demonstration TTD versus practices (i.e. Business Units). One of the candidates with 8 CGPA from 2003 batch wasn’t able to satisfy the policy, as he was short of three days as he was shuttling between Bangalore and his native for his mother’s cancer treatment was punished on the grounds that if the policy is relaxed for him it would have to be relaxed for others also. As a matter of fact Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal confessed that she was also penalized for the same when she was pursuing her mini MBA from IIMB in Wipro Technologies Ltd, she was also penalized, so the same applies.

What’s even more unfortunate is that this unjustified, degrading event happened just after a week after the launch of “Spirit of Wipro” which was inaugurated and presented by the honorable chairman of Wipro Technologies Ltd Mr. Azim Premji himself. So much in the face of “Spirit of Wipro” corporate philosophy which demands virtues like “Act with Sensitivity – Respect for Individuals” from its employees. What even a sadder state of affairs is that BITS, Pilani has no issue and was pretty flexible to allow these penalized students to write even the current semester i.e. third semester examination, as well as otherwise accept other options like allowing penalized students to continue to the fourth semester while allowing them to appear in exams of two subjects of third semester in fifth and seventh semester if TTD agrees, but thanks to a system which vests so much power in hands of few, while deprave others of any, individuals like Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal decided to be totally rigid and make sure to destroy careers of 22 young students, by penalizing them with one year drop. Someone once very rightly said “Its very easy to loose hope in a country like India”, we Indians rather than taking responsibility and creating an enabling environment for developing our nation, create as many possible hurdles to demotivate even the most talented deserving young men and women of our country. “Developed India 2020” dream can’t be realized until people of this great nation actually realize their responsibilities and act with sensitivity; uphold their values, ethics and morals and come forward and contribute. What need to be noticed is there are no checks on the activities of TTD in Wipro Technologies Ltd; as a result too much power is vested in individuals who can misuse these powers, as in case of Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal.

The Implications Of Policies Pertaining To Attendance:

1.) It’s neither practical nor nessicary.2.) Secondly it creates an environment of unrest and unessicary

confrontation and commotion in the organization.3.) It also serves as the source of negative publicity of the organization;

it hurts the public image and brand values of the organization. Such negative influences further lead to higher attrition rate, low quality manpower intake as good quality manpower would like to refrain from such environment, it also casts a negative public image of the organization to the clients and business partners.

4.)WASE employees are penalized by TTD for working extra hard to achieve organizations business targets, while they are penalized, under estimated, suppressed by practices in case they fail to do so. So primarily in this power strife between TTD and practices it’s the poor WASEians which are penalized for just doing there jobs.

5.) TTD penalizes the WASEians by almost destroying there careers by unnecessarily prolonging the course, by rejecting onsite application.

6.) Practices on other hand would under estimate, obstruct opportunities, appraisals and other form of organizational growth incase occupational goals are neglected.

7.) Lack of trust and respect for employees, isolation of WASEians, and lack of loyalty and belongingness towards organization by the employees (WASEians).

8.) Long term Psychological effect like inferiority complex, isolation, anti- social behavior, tendency to revenge and wrong at given opportunity, anger, embarrassment as a consequences of failing academically even with highest possible grades, the shock of being demoted and penalized by the same organization for which an employee was dedicated and devoted himself towards its work and business goals.

The Faculty:

The faculty is the perhaps the cheapest faculty available from local colleges, at times are hardly qualified themselves to take classes for students at MS level. It’s not very transparent the processes of selection, the eligibility criteria for the faculty and who recommends and selects the faculty; whether it’s BITS or Wipro Technologies Ltd. Most of these faculties certainly are nowhere comparable to the faculty at BITS Pilani campus, IIT(s), I.I.Sc or at any other world class university, and are generally at maximum as good as the lecturer any candidate would have experienced at their bachelor level studies at their local colleges. The faculty hired for WASE is a variety bunch of B.Sc, M.Sc, M.Tech, B.Tech, taking classes for the students at M.S.

level. BITS a world class university; Wipro A World class Organization, the faculty for WASE not world class. The question here is why the faculty hired by Wipro Technologies for conducting classes for MS from BITS, not world class, why not from BITS itself or other world class academic institution from around the world? What needs to be understood is as we globalize and understand the importance of research and development we need an enabling environment to support it? So if BITS & IITS, I.I.Sc. Can have world class faculty, at times even international faculty in form of visiting lecturers and guest faculty, why not at WASE?

The Lectures:

The lecture comprises of a line by line recital of lecture notes from international university by an ill qualified or perhaps half interested lecturer. The way and by whom the lecture is imparted empowers you with what’s written in the notes and nothing more it doesn’t create an enabling environment for you to research the subject, investigate into it, innovate, invent which typically a MS program lecture should do as it happens in all world class institutes like IIT, BITS, MITS. Generally MS program around the world are revolve around research, innovation, intellectual wealth creation. The lectures are generally a monologue, non interactive recitals and are generally utilized by many students if not all for sleeping playing computer games, sketching, catching up with friends, and reading text outside the curriculum and other much more creative & intellectually enlightening activities. It’s made sure all of these activities are done discretely to maintain the decor of the class. The efforts of attending lectures are solely directed towards attaining a minimum attendance of 75%, which is occasionally maintained by the students by means of proxy.

The Examinations:

There are two set of examination conducted per semester the mid semester exams and the end semester examination. The mid semester examination is a closed book examination and has 40% weightage in the final grades, while end semester examination is an open book comprehensive examination and accounts for remaining 60% weightage in the final grades.

Since candidates are full time employees, there might be situation where the candidates might be unable to appear for the regular exams, so as to be flexible the organization offers a very inflexible option of appearing in make up exams for both mid semester closed book and end semester comprehensive open book examination which are scheduled a week after the end of regular end semester exams. It’s

inflexible as to take make up exam one need prior approval from the TTD, which involves totally another difficult and many a times fruitless process of convincing the TTD WASE coordinators.

The level of examinations is as high as the subject curriculum itself.

The Grade Sheet and the Transcript:

According to BITS, Pilani policy every candidate enrolled for the program is awarded a grade sheet at the end of every semester examination and a degree transcript after completing the program successfully. According to education policy and directives issued by Department of Higher Education under Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India its illegal to deny the candidates of the grade sheet, degree transcript, certificate of completion or any academic status report or academic award dossier issued by the awarding body i.e. university, college, school or by any intermediate facilitating body. But according to Wipro Technologies Ltd, policies pertaining to WASE, the Indian laws are clearly violated as per this policy WASEians are not distributed any of the grade sheets awarded to them by BITS, Pilani until the candidates complete the whole program i.e. generally after 48 months. The policy is such that even incase of WASEians resigning or being terminated by the organization itself the WASEians are not awarded any certificate of association with the organization, nor a certificate of association with BITS, Pilani, neither handed over any grade sheets for completed semesters already awarded to them by BITS, Pilani. It also makes it hard for WASEians to give their GRE exams required for enrolling in the MS programs abroad, as GRE requires 16 years of formal education, which one can be otherwise acquired by pursuing first year of MCA, M.Sc programs rather than opting for WASE . The implications are huge; the nation is deprived of the technological, socio economical benefits it could have gained, if some of these talented candidates who aspire and are very much equipped to take up advanced higher studies in areas of high technology in US or any where abroad were not depraved of the enabling environment. The policy very well depicts the trust, the respect, the empowerment WASEians enjoy in the organization.

On confrontation organization has come up with an answer as way out as that the grade sheets were issued initially to the students, but due to misuse and malpractices the organization had to discontinue distributing grade sheets. The so called misuse possibly could be candidates exploring better opportunities like GRE for education abroad, jobs in other organizations which offer much higher pays are higher, exposure to cutting edge technology, opportunity to work in domain of ones interest, non discriminatory and rewarding work

environment, an enabling environment to contribute more. The practice is primarily is an entrapment for the employees to restrict them from exploring opportunities outside. The problems with such practices are:

1.) It symbolizes slavery and bonded labor.2.) It’s illegal according to the Indian Law.3.) It’s unethical and morally belittling practice.4.) It creates a claustrophobic environment for the employees, as it

restricts talented individuals to do something for themselves, their family, contribute towards the community, the country.

5.) Its not transparent in the name of the so called investment the organization claims towards running WASE, as even if the investment exists (which is doesn’t as explained in later in the “The Cost” section) its multiple times compensated by the business created and services offered by the WASEians.

6.)What gives organization the right to decide on personal matters like choices an individual makes for oneself?

7.) Its discriminatory and hypocritical, as on one hand it empowers a section of society(Organization, normal employees) to make choices for itself, explore all possible avenues for itself on other hand in the name of trade practices it denies any such right to other section of the society (WASEians).

The Policies:

The policies pertaining to WASE are ambiguous enough to be interpreted and practiced by different management as per individual’s interpretation, flexible and dynamic to be manipulated in real time as per the situation, and extremely implicit to hold as much information as it can in as many less as words as possible without explicitly saying anything against or for any situation. The management i.e. The TED (Talent Engagement Department), The TTD (Talent Transformation Department) are responsible for formulating, manipulating and updating policies in real-time. The policies are changed, molded and restored on a case per case and need to manipulate basis. On many instance the policy have been changed to address any status quo at that given point of time and were reverted soon after, after neutralization of the situation, some times within 24 Hours. The policies are generally manipulated to neutralize situations and end status quo. The policies are practiced as and when required on a case to case basis, unlike a process which is uniform and standardized. The option of exercising a policy is rested in hands of individuals the TED, the TTD, the practices. The policies rather than being a part of a process are individual preference of who ever constitutes the management. This makes the policies very flexible, dynamic and

highly biased as individual human choices are involved in decision making. The policies are not accommodating at all and lack sensitivity and also sensibility. The organizations “Spirit of Wipro” , “feels good, feel connected, feel cared for” propaganda claims values like respect for individuals, trust in individuals, act with sensitivity, integrity, acknowledgement of the fact that individual’s aspiration and action for self growth in the organization are valid is literarily contradictory to the practiced philosophy and policies of WASE .

The policies are very discriminating, as these polices deny the respect for individuals, dignity, to WASEians as compared to normal employees. Another thing to be noted is there were and are no WASEians ever involved directly or indirectly in formulation and review of these policies even though they are directly impacted by them. Almost 1700 WASEians are impacted by these policies and they have no say in these policies, not even their feedback. A very dictatorial approach is followed while formulating these policies as no organization wide employee referendum, open house for WASEians are ever conducted to get their feedback on these policies. Another thing to be noted is even the WASE policies pertaining to academic affairs are formulated not by academicians accredited by superior facto de uno authorities i.e. Government of India’s Ministry Of HRD – Department of Education as incase of all universities and other academic institutes, but by the Human Resource Managers at Wipro Technologies Ltd. What needs to be answered is how does a MBA degree, or being an experiences qualified corporate trainer makes an individual equivalent to an academician responsible for university academic affairs? The integrity, legitimacy, moral and ethical status of these policies is very questionable.

There are policies which are just face value policies; they have never or rarely been exercised. Even in cases where these policies are violated in mass. For example, the policy pertaining to minimum criteria for clearing PRP and FRP i.e. 80% score in the PRP and FRP examination, failure to which would lead termination of the candidature has never ever been exercised, even with a high rate of failure in these exams.

The policy pertaining to shortage of attendance which states “Incase of candidate no meeting 75% attendance, would be barred from the current semester exams”. The policy doesn’t state whether 75% attendance in aggregate or per subject basis, as being short in attendance of one subject should not lead to penalty for all the subjects. The policy also falls short in stating the exception cases such as shortage of attendance due to engagement of the candidate in business critical occupational activity or an onsite assignment, medical

reasons, cases pertaining to multiple unscheduled or not pre notified classes of same subject in a single day. The policy also doesn’t imply one year drop as proposed by the management as M.S in Software Engineering program has courses without any prerequisites, in that case student should be allowed to undertake the next semester as per the schedule and retake the missed semester later or as a part of other semesters.

The policies only apply for WASEians, while any small violation of policy by WASEians attract dire consequences on the other hand any shortcoming or violation of policy by TTD is ignored and never questioned even by TTD heads Mr. D. Selvan and HR Vice president Mr. Pratik Kumar. For instance in Bangalore it was clearly an integrity issue according to WASE policy when almost 70% of the WASE students of all batches were caught red handed for proxy attendances in 2006, but yet these students were allowed to continue, it’s a violation of policy people not satisfying 75% attendance by 2 days were allowed to appear for semester exams, while students with 3 days short were victimized and not allowed to appear for semester exams. These decisions were independently taken by Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal (TTD WASE Coordinator) and Mr. Kuruvilla Sebi Kumar (TTD WASE Coordinator), yet no penalty was levied on them for violation of policies, while 22 WASEians were heavily taxed for working in the interest of the organization.

There are some unwritten policies like denial of Grade sheets to the WASEians until 4 years i.e. until completion of the WASE program. The policy is not present in the bond, neither on corporate website, but is widely practiced, the reason being, explicitly stating such policy could attract major legal implications for the organization and symbolize bonded slavery.

The policy pertaining to the overtime benefits, client’s performance incentives, bonuses for WASEians are also not defined are manipulated and reverted soon after on website in case of status quo. These are practiced on the case to case basis if the some practices wish to distribute these allowances it does - unofficially, while other practices might not.

The Employment:

The BITS, Pilani policy clearly indicate that all candidates undergoing Distance Learning Program or Collaborative Program are full time employees with the organization and also are full time students with BITS, Pilani. The status of WASEians in Wipro Technologies Ltd is more of pseudo students and pseudo employees. The designation of the

WASEians in the organization is Student – Computer Applications. Such an arrangement is made to clearly discriminate WASEians from normal full time employees. This enables the organization to extract full time occupation at cheap labor rates in the name of education as the status given to WASEians in the organization is just that of student. Again the status of student is clearly misused as WASEians are involved in full time employment and there is hardly any aspect of studentship in the whole instrument, as one day of academic contact sessions i.e. Saturday classes for M.S. makes a WASEian a full time student, while five days of full time work doesn’t make WASEians a full time employee.

The whole ideology behind this program is so unethical and cheap since WASE is the only collaborative program in the industry where the organization extracts full time work from the WASEians and yet label them as “Student – Computer Application” and treat them as students/trainees when it comes to salary, benefits, organizational growth and opportunities, professional experience certificate. On the contrary other contemporary large India and foreign IT MNC like Cognizant Technology System, Patni Computers, HCL Technologies, and Mahindra British Telecom all are running the same collaborative program with BITS, Pilani and yet their candidates are treated, respected, and evaluated as normal employees in all academic and professional aspects of the program in the organization.

WASEians are deployed in a variety of projects & domains; it includes Testing Projects, Maintenance Projects, Documentation Projects, Bug Fixing & Mediocre Development Projects, Hard Core Development Projects, Niche Domains Projects, and Business Analyst Roles. WASEians are primarily pseudo students, the reason for that is that they are involved in full time employment i.e. 45 -50 Hrs/Week of occupational activities, yet they are designated as students, so as the organization can employee them at cheapest possible rates which is barely equivalent to perhaps the average national minimum wage of $4/Day. Infact the irony here is that the Software Engineering Job pays even less than the Wipro Gatekeeper who earns around $333/Month. It sometimes makes one wonder about software engineering being a right career option or not.

As the IT industry has matured and it’s realized that Annualized Cost based testing, maintenance projects are much more profitable than the development projects. The reasons for arriving at such conclusions are:

1. The fact that most of the projects with all Indian IT majors are mostly Maintenance and Testing projects, which actually account to 70% of the total projects.

2. Emerging patterns and trends in the job market. Heavy recruitment just for maintenance and testing projects.

3. Longer time span of the project and commitment between the stakeholders.

4. The input resources for maintenance and testing projects are cheaper than that required for development project which requires technically sound & experienced human resource which is scarce and costly.

The difference in technological superiority and cost of resource required for development project versus maintenance project is due to the following facts:

1. Higher training cost required to train engineers on proprietary technologies.

2. Higher cost of the technically superior manpower which generally come out of niche T schools like IIT, BITS, NIT, IIIT and B Schools like ISB, FMS, IIM, MDI in India and abroad.

3. High competency retention cost, the cost incurred by the company as measure to reduce attrition by means of offering market wide highest compensation to highly competent individuals.

4. High compensation rates for highly competent candidates both in form of salaries as well as business partnership and collaboration and also stock option.

The consequences of the artificial disparity induced by the Wipro Technologies Ltd management, the HR, between employees and WASEians, is that even the most competent and motivated WASEians are being deployed in technically & managerially lower set of jobs like testing, maintenance, documentation as compared to the normal employees. Though a decent number of them do manage to get into technically & managerially enriching projects, but that takes some time, around 2 – 3 years in WASE & lot of struggle (organizational politics, higher technical & managerial competitiveness, competitiveness & exclusiveness of the domain/skill, and some degree of non availability of other contemporary resource( i.e. engineers) in the same project or domain). But then again nothing is guaranteed.

The Virtue of Being Non-Billable:

Another malpractice widely practiced in the organization is many WASEians work on live client projects without being billable, that means even thought the WASEian would be working on the client

project like any other employee, but the clients don’t know about them, the organization extract work out of them even when they are non billable, thus non billable WASEians in client projects are deprived of client exposure, client benefits, and the appreciation and appraisal of the work they have done. It’s like the practices in music industry where ugly looking singers actually lend their voices while beautiful looking models in the videos take all the ownership & appreciation for the music. The consequences of such discriminatory practices have resulted in low moral, low motivation, low confidence level, higher rate of medical problems in WASEians, psychological disorders like depression, inferiority complex, frustration and other long term not so obvious psychological effects which have an impact on their personal lives.

To somehow deal with this problem internally, there is a Wipro Technologies Ltd policy which states any employee engaged in a client project as a non billable resource for three or more months would be released from the client project. This policy is utilized by moving non billable resources primarily (WASEians) from one project to another after every three months. Keeping some WASEians as non billable resources or on bench for prolonged periods in the organization doesn’t hurt organizations pocket as WASEians are anyways cheap labor and bonded slaves.

The Discrimination – Denial of Opportunity:

The whole organizational environment is plagued by organizational politics, when it comes to Learning Opportunities, Onsite Opportunities, Good Project Opportunities, Exposure Opportunities, and Business Role Undertaking Opportunities. Even the most basic elements as defined by fundamental Management and Organizational Theory, like Job Rotation, Technical Training, Managerial & Leadership Training, Appraisals which dictates job satisfaction and development of individual as a human being as well as his/her growth in organization are widely denied to WASEians, they only exists and are practiced in corporate policy books.

The policy and its practice otherwise is more or less in place for regular employees. All the above mentioned opportunities are available for normal employees as a fundamental right. Even after completing 2-3 years in WASE, normal employees even if fresher are always given the first preference when it comes to career opportunities like onsite, managerial – business roles, and technically rewarding project. The number of onsite opportunities for WASEians are almost negligible at least not until one passes out, again nothing is guaranteed even after that. It takes almost another six months after completion of the four

years long course to get an OOC banding for onsite opportunity in Wipro Technologies Ltd. The technical & managerial expertise acquired by the most average WASEians over a period 1-2 years after joining WASE, after being exposed to a very competitive corporate environment makes them equivalent to their counterparts B.E./B.Tech but the organization decides to pretend its not so. Acknowledging such a fact would be an organizational suicide of corporate philosophies and “The Spirit of Wipro” - “feels good, feel connected, feel cared for” propaganda, as these philosophies claim equality & respect for individuals, Value & Integrity in all maters of corporate affairs. It’s totally against the virtue of Integrity, Value, Equality and Respect of Individuals that WASEians should be denied fair opportunities in the organization, discriminated and denied the acknowledgement to their efforts which are no possible ways less both in quantity and quality as compared to any other employees.

According to BITS Pilani policy the candidature to academic program in which an employee is enrolled with the university as a part of Distance Learning Program or a collaborative program would terminate only incase if the employment bond between the employee and the organization is terminated by the organization or the employee, but incase the employee terminates the contract and there is a change of employment (generally in the organization with similar enabling environment), in that case if the new organization agrees to sponsor the employee for his education , the employee can still continue with the program from where it was suspended. Example: if Wipro Technologies Ltd WASE employee if decide in the middle of the bond period say in 3 semester to terminate the employment bond with Wipro Technologies Ltd and join a new IT firm say Mahindra British Telecom, Cognizant Technology Systems, HCL Limited, IBM and if these firm have no objection with the employee to continue his educational program and sign a sponsorship contract with BITS, its very much possible for the employee to continue the academic program from the semester it was suspended in the new organization.

The Experience Certificate:

The experience certificate that WASEians receive after four years of the WASE program, which involved full time occupation, clearly states the WASEians association with the organization as nothing more than as “Student – Computer Application”, it’s a plain vanilla certificate stating that so and so was associated with Wipro Technologies Ltd for a period of four years as Student – Computer Application and nothing more. These certificates many a times doesn’t serve any purpose at all as one applies for job or higher education as these organization and

institutes wouldn’t count it as professional experience as they have no option but go by the language on the certificate.

Also to be noted is that this experience in not even counted in Wipro Technologies Ltd as a professional experience if the WASEians decide to continue with Wipro Technologies Ltd after the completion of the WASE program. It is demonstrated by the fact that when normal employees are promoted to a red band after five years of service, it takes nine years (i.e. four years WASE period and another five years of normal employment period) for WASEians to reach the same level.

The question is it ethical and morally upright behavior on the part of the organization not to acknowledge the services individuals offered to the organization, no matter what designation that individual had in the organization? Should designation be used as the criteria to establish the legitimacy of the contribution/service of an individual offered to the organization over the years? If that’s the case one could have any title in the organization and yet no contribution. So by stating this point, are we trying to say what normal employees perform over a five day week is call full time work experience, while what WASEians do over a five day week is same as what normal employees, then on what basis same is not acknowledged by the organization? These are some very fundamental and important question in any organization, and if not justified on ethical and morally upright ground leads to social injustice.

The Onsite:

Onsite Opportunities / Onsite Trainings / Client Interaction and Job profiles like Requirement Gathering / Analysis, Business Development Practices are core part of the learning processes of any software professional. It enables employees to develop a cosmopolitan outlook empowering them to deal with clients from all over the world, giving them insight about their culture, business practices. Such exposure helps employees to grow and further capture more business for the organization.

The organization portrays WASEians as students and not as employees there by reducing the onsite opportunities for WASEians. Since WASEians are not full time employees with Wipro Technologies Ltd, thus there are legal complications in getting VISA. The strategy behind such policy is that sending WASEians onsite would defeat the purpose of running the WASE programs i.e. cost cutting via cheap labor, therefore Wipro Technologies Ltd discourages onsite assignments and exposure for WASEians. The probability of WASEians going onsite is negligible, almost non existent one rough figure is almost 5/1750 (0.0028) i.e. the number of WASEians onsite in 2006. Even the duration

of onsite for WASEians is not more than two to three months. A Wipro Technologies Ltd policy clearly states, absentee from the WASE program for more than 2 terms would automatically lead to termination of the candidature from the organization which could lead to termination of candidature from BITS, Pilani also.

The Accommodation:

Many WASEian live in shanty houses in the cheapest neighborhoods in the city like (Audogodi), the rents in even these localities is as high as $65 per Person per Month on sharing basis for a rented house; others find accommodation in cities cheapest, insecure paying guest accommodations in the city. Some of these paying guest accommodations are in form a large room with 5 – 10 bunker beds arranged sequentially in the same room, resembling an army barrack, these rooms are generally are not equipped with any cupboards a cupboard would cost a bit extra, and have shared bathroom arrangements and yet come on rent as high as $45/bed. Most of these paying guests accommodation also provide meal facilities which include breakfast, lunch and dinner for its tenet’s but at an extra cost ranging between $23/Month - $35/Month. The food served is mostly south Indian delicacies. These paying guest are not the most secure accommodation in the city, as indicated by many reports of harassment, violence and violation of privacy by the paying guest management and owners, theft of belongings of the tenet’s, brawls amongst room mates that have been surfacing on almost daily basis.

There are decent localities in Bangalore with lower rentals almost as low as 33% - 50% lower rentals than the in city neighborhoods but are generally situated very far away from the city centre or in the outskirts of the city. These localities though have decent number market places, and are pretty well connected to the rest of the city, lack recreational facilities, have limited number of eating joints, cafes etc. So on an average generally one has to anyways travel to in city localities for recreational activities etc almost once or twice a week. Apart most importantly these localities are really far away from employee’s office, and considering Bangalore’s inefficient and insufficient public transport system, road networks and its condition and volume of traffic simply implies awfully long and wasteful traveling time for the employees. Some of these localities in Bangalore are Hosur, Bannerghetta, Rajaji Nagar, and Whitefield – Hoodi Village, Thipasandra. These accommodations are certainly cheap as compared to rental in the in city locations for instance a 1 BHK in these localities would be in the range $77/Month - $100/Month, while a 2 BHK would be in the range $145/Month - $215/Month.

Most of the well settled, well equipped good localities in Bangalore are located around the city centre and are close to employee’s office and are also pretty well connected with almost all parts of Bangalore. These locations flaunt comparatively cleaner and greener surroundings, parks, lots of multi cuisine eating joints and restaurants, pubs, market places, malls, internet cafes, cafes and other recreational facilities like multiplexes, bowling joints, clubs, sports clubs etc but all of this come at a premium price, which is generally difficult to afford in WASE stipend. Some of such localities are Koramangala, Indranagar, Jayanagar, J.P. Nagar, M.G. Road and BTM. A decent accommodation for one on sharing basis in a rented house in these localities costs in the range of $67/Person per Month - $88/Person per Month, apart from an initial security deposit cost which is ten months of the accommodation rent. Another problem is as WASEians are not eligible for a relocation benefits and considering their low stipends they are not eligible for housing loans at least in first two years of WASE It is problem since to rent a house in Bangalore one requires to pay ten month rent in advance which leaves WASEians either to live in cheapest possible paying guest accommodations or rent a house in localities situated really far of from the office, sometimes even in outskirts of the city. Living in distant localities in a city like Bangalore with high volume of traffic and no metro railway system and buses as the only means of mass transport can mean a waste of time at least 1.5 Hours – 3 Hours daily.

The average house rentals in Bangalore is indicted below:

S.No

House Category

$ Rental/Month

Security Deposit

1 1BHK $111 - $200$1110 - $2000

2 2BHK $156 - $311$1560 - $3110

3 3BHK $211 - $444$2110 - $4440

Note

These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might differ slightly.

The Lifestyle:

The low salary seriously affects the life style of the WASEians which can be observed in their eating, clothing, leisure activities. The

candidates are left with no savings for the future, no excessive money for leisure and relaxing.

Lets take-up the general not explicit psychology and the economical factors aspect to something as simple as the dress up of the WASEians. The dress up which includes not just clothing but also the way one carries himself, the attitude, the maturity of most such candidates is cheap, naïve and pretty unprofessional. Generally in the first two years of the WASE program its not very uncommon to find dressed up college in classics flaunting a jeans and a un tucked tee shirts, sport shoes at times even floaters all through the week, which is pretty ok but when coupled with the unprofessional, still in college attitude, it’s totally out of sync with the business environment. One reason for that is the attitude, the philosophy that is imposed on the organization by designating them as students, makes them believe they are yet not out of college, the professionalism, the maturity which these candidates are supposed to develop after three years of professional graduate studies is generally suppressed. Economically speaking such dress up is multi purpose, while just owning a formal get up which would generally be used only 4 days a week and only at office would be a little costly option. These implications are not so explicit and are rather psychological effects that happen in the back of any individuals mind.

A pattern has been discovered where WASEians shy away from group team activities in the organization which would require investment from one’s own pocket. With meager income even the most outgoing WASEians are forced to transform into introverts, as limited income and stringent budgeting means heavily cutting down of social activities and hobbies, which seriously hampers individuals’ growth in life. It’s the period between 18 – 25 age i.e. college period to early professional career period is when most human beings generally travel, develop new hobbies and experiment, develop sporting skills this period is the character defining period, as the habits, skills embodied in this period become the personally traits of the individuals through out their life. This doesn’t mean people stop experimenting, exploring and learning after 25, it’s a continuous process and spans ones life time, but the above mentioned period is very defining in an individuals’ life. The lifestyle imposed by the WASE program and its limitations in form of low salary, exploitation of human beings has deep impact on the personality development process of the WASEians. While normal employees in the age group 22 – 25 easily afford (in terms of time as well as monetarily) hobbies like traveling, music, movies, art, theatre, sports, gym, swimming, photography WASEians generally are restricted to home watching televisions (if they possess one) owing to their financial incapability as imposed by their low salary, non enabling

environment imposed by bonded slavery like organizational practices, leave WASEians handicapped to experiment and explore any opportunities within and outside the organization.

The implications of such lifestyles on WASEians are:

1. No time for personal developments, therefore very little intellectually or socially growth of individuals.

2. No extra time to put towards studies.3. No personal savings for future.4. Higher social responsibilities.5. Reduced involvement of WASEians in social activities outside the

organization.6. Financial hardship at times ending in legal problems for WASEians.7. Higher rate of medical problems amongst WASEians.8. Higher stress level and other psychological affects like inferiority

complex, anger, depression which affects their personalities in long term.

The Compensation:

Salary, Scholarship, Stipend are the synonyms used for the compensation paid to WASEians for occupational activities almost 200Hrs/Month (i.e. 9Hrs/Day * 5Days/Week * 4Weeks/Month) directed towards achieving business goals of the organization, as done by any other normal employee in the organization. These synonyms are used interchangeably by the organization on a day to day basis as the role of pseudo student change to employees and vice versa. The words salary and scholarship are used interchangeably by the organizations; it’s a smart policy as it leaves no room for debates over the compensation i.e. any demands for hike in salary by the WASE employee or in other words a demand for raise in the scholarship by the WASE students. It’s hard to believe that any market analysis was conducted before arriving at the compensation, factors like inflation, rate of growth of economy, rising cost of living, competitive market compensation for similar candidates in other organization are not taken into consideration. The expensive options like saving and investing for a secured future are unimaginable with such a stipend which is not even enough to sustain the most modest and basic lifestyle. It actually makes one wonder whether a career as software professional is such a good idea. In short WASE is four years of poverty and extreme financial and associated hardship for the candidates and perhaps also for their families.

WASEians aren’t eligible for any performance incentives, bonuses, market rate correction compensations, and appraisal. Even the

overtime benefit i.e. reimbursement of $1.6 towards dinner for working beyond 18:00 Hours is denied to the WASEians while normal employees are eligible for it all as their fundamental right. What more the benefits from the clients like night shift allowance, performance incentives, project bonuses, overtime benefits are generally denied to WASEians, these policies are manipulated in real-time as and when required, any dispute related to allowances are changed and are reflected on the organization website immediately and then reversed soon after. One can say policies and processes are dynamic and flexible. The yearly hikes which range between 10% – 20% for normal employees is denied to the WASEians. There is yearly hike of around $22/Month - $33/Month in the WASE salaries, but considering the inflation and raised purchasing parity doesn’t add up to anything, and doesn’t really raise the standard of living and lifestyle of WASEians . But the fact is Indian economy has seen quantum leaps in past 3 - 4 of years 2002 - 2006, resulting in a high inflation rate owing to high purchasing parity. The inflation rate is averaged around 7% - 8% continuously. The property prices have changed almost 50% - 100% in years 2004 – 2006. The residential rental rates in Bangalore go up by almost 10% every year in as a trend. In such an economy which is growing exponentially the stipend given to the WASEians and the yearly hikes in the stipend are not sufficient. More so the WASE scholarship is taxable. In what country of the world scholarships are taxable?

Another thing to be noted is the Government of India also endow the candidates undergoing M.Tech in government institutes like IIT, BITS, NIT, IIIT, Government Colleges, these endowments are in the range of $100/Month to $180/Month apart from other scholarships like tuition fee waiver, merit scholarships etc for a full time program lasting 2 years only. So the question is what’s so great about doing WASE as compared to undergoing full time M.Tech outside as far as endowments are concerned? While in the case of M.Tech outside one doesn’t have to be a full time employee for being endowed while in the case WASE candidates has to work as a full time employee to get such an endowment.

The stipend is not even sufficient to provide for most basic of needs. As a resort to ending financial hardship most WASEians end up borrowing from their families, which defeat the purpose as many a time many of these students are here to get quality education which they wouldn’t be able to pursue otherwise. Other WASEians who owing to self pride or poor family financial conditions end up taking excessive loans from bank, higher utilization of credit cards and as a result many a times end up as defaulters owing to non payment of credit thus landing themselves into legal problems.

What else needs to be noticed is that similar collaborative programs is being offered by so many other Indian companies, the compensations in these organization is almost double what Wipro Technologies Ltd pay to the candidates of its collaborative program.

The WASE stipend for the first two years is in range $126 - $166 which is even less than $179 spent towards sustaining even the basic needs. The indicated cost towards monthly food budget is the cost of three meals/ Day at organizations cafeteria, which is pretty subsidized and, doesn’t include cost incurred for snacks and drinks or a meal in restaurants outside. The budget doesn’t include expenses incurred by the WASEians for books and reading material to be purchased by them, considering the organizational library are ill equipped to cater to 700 odd student from one batch itself. The budget also doesn’t include any cost towards clothing expenses, leisure activities, entertainment expenses, and traveling expenses on an average two round trip to native place. As many of the candidates are from north India and India being a vast country, and considering only 15 Days/Annum of permissible leaves to adjust from, traveling by rail is a time consuming means of transportation, on an average would cut your trip short by 2 -2.5 days short in one direction, thus leaving only air travel the only suitable option, which again even with no frill airlines in picture is an expensive option considering the meager stipend and absolutely no savings.

The Compensation Offered By Other Indian And International MNC For Similar Collaborative Program Candidates In Their Organization:

S.No

Company 1st

Semester

2nd

Semester

2nd

Year3rd

Year4th

Year

1 Wipro Technologies. $126 $137 $165 $211 $3442 Mahindra British

Telecom*$ $ $ $ $

3 Cognizant Technology Systems*

$200 $200 $290 $375 $480

4 Patni* $190 $190 $290 $380 $4705 HCL Technologies* $ $ $ $ $Note

These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might differ slightly.

* Actual figures may be higher as influenced by annual appraisal, market and economy influenced compensation correction, annual

hike, bonuses.

The financial budget of an average WASEian in Bangalore, the budget for WASEians in other location would vary very slightly is demonstrated below:

S.No

ResourcesCost/Month

1 House Rent $672 Telephone $223 Electricity $34 Drinking Water $15 Cable TV Connection $16 Breakfast @ $0.4 $137 Lunch @ $0.9 $278 Dinner @ $0.6 $209 Medical Insurance $610 Transportation Cost i.e. Company Transport $1411 Interest Towards Bond Money Loan $912 Miscellaneous (Personal Care Goods) $1013 Total $179Note

These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might differ slightly.

The Benefits:

The Other Benefits In Other Firms Offering Such Collaborative Programs Are:

Wipro Technologies – Employee Benefits

1. 10 months interest free loans of $444.2. Parental life Insurance Of $222/Annum.

3. General Medical Insurance $111/Month.4. Medical Cover of Up to $2222/Annum towards serious aliments.5. Zero Days/Annum paid sick leaves. 6. 15 Days/Annum paid annual leaves.7. Zero Days/Annum Maternity - Parental leaves.8. $50/Month of WASE course expenses paid by the company.9. 50% rebate on $26/Month company transport (Buses) charge.

Mahindra British Telecom – Employee Benefits

1. Company leased 3 star accommodations on sharing basis.

Cognizant Technology Systems – Employee Benefits

Patni – Employee Benefits

1. General Medical Insurance $333/Annum2. Medical Cover of Up to $2222/Annum towards serious aliments.3. ? Days/Annum paid sick leaves. 4. 18 Days/Annum paid annual leaves.5. 45 Days/Annum Maternity - Parental leaves.6. Collaborative course expenses paid by the company.

HCL Technologies – Employee Benefits

The Implications:

1. No or very little improvement of the socio – economic conditions and life style of WASEians and their families. As the stipend is very less WASEians themselves can barely sustain themselves, also they can’t contribute towards their families. Their purchasing power is limited, and they remain at the bottom of the socio – economic ladder for at least four years. Four years is a pretty long time, as far as economics is concerned and other wise also. It generally takes longer for WASE candidates to catch up compared to the normal employees in the organization as a result they are not able to rise up the economic ladder at the same rate.

2. Many of these talented brains are restrained by the policies and lack of enabling environment and are not able to venture out as in case mentioned for studies abroad. This leads to a serious loss to the nation as the intellectual wealth and talent gets wasted or under utilized.

3. The curriculum is technically not very awarding to the candidates, as result the candidates successfully completing on an average wouldn’t be of the same quality as students from other computer science courses from BITS, Pilani campus or any other world class institutes.

4. No time for personal developments, therefore very little intellectually or socially growth of individuals.

5. No extra time to put towards studies.6. No personal savings for future or advanced studies (MBA or

anything from abroad critically depends on previous employment savings, which in case WASE is nil, thus most WASEians are deprived of such golden opportunities).

7. Inability to fulfill their social obligation towards their siblings, their families. Higher social responsibilities.

8. Reduced involvement of WASEians in social activities outside the organization.

9. Financial hardship at times ending in legal problems for WASEians.10. Higher rate of medical problems amongst WASEians, hyper

tension, high blood pressure.11. Higher stress level and other psychological affects like inferiority

complex, anger, depression, compulsive obsessive disorders, isolation behavior which affects their personalities in long term.

The Cost to the Organization:

The point, the fact that the company is investing money is WASE program; is the reason for creating disparity between non WASE employees and WASE employees is unjustified. The organization also invests in the MBA program from Symbiosis, PGSM from IIMB, MS Microelectronics from BITS, Pilani, but those employees are compensated on industry standard rates & eligible for all other company benefits. The cost incurred by the organization in offering the above mentioned collaborative programs would be in the same range as that of WASE. But it’ll be an organizational suicide if Wipro Technologies Ltd decides to treat its normal employees like WASEians. Also to be noted is that the investment by the organization into WASE is not from its kitty, if one calculates it’s a deduction from the anyways underpaid WASE stipend. What is also not acknowledged and accounted for is the business created or accomplished by the

WASEians working as full time employees in the organization like any other employee. Another thing that needs to be noted is that there is no transparency in the claims about the amount of investment that the organization swears on running the WASE program. The transparency of the whole process is being questioned because of the fact that no Account balance sheet, exclusively indicating the cost incurred by the organization in running WASE program, has ever been released. Also, what needs to be thought about is if the organization claims that it invests for 4 years into the WASE program, then why doesn’t organization have a WASE retention policy after 4 years, to reap on the return on investment. Almost 98% WASEians leave the organization in the 5th year i.e. immediately after completing the WASE program. The reasons for such an alarming attrition rate have been discussed later in this paper. The fact is return on investment which is 4.2 times more than the normal employee which the company reaps during 4 year WASE is never acknowledged.

Therefore the cost including salary of WASE Program/WASEian/month to the organization = $83

(I.e. $494/6Months)

Therefore the cost excluding salary of WASE Program/WASEian/month to the organization = $54

(I.e. $326/6Months)

Considering these are just rough estimates, and the fact that the facilities are owned by Wipro Technologies, thus the infrastructure rent is considerably less.

The more close figure of cost of running WASE Program/WASEian/month to the organization = $44

BatchStudents

$ Salary/Student

$ Total Salary

2002 70 $344 $240802003 230 $211 $485302004 690 $167 $1152302005 680 $144 $97920 Total 1670 $866 $285760       $ Average Salary

$171  

The Indicative Cost To The Organization/Semester Is As Follow:

No ResourcesUnits Of Resources/ Semester

$ Unit Cost Per Unit Resource/ Semester i.e. 16 Lectures

$Total Cost/ Semester

1 Cost Per Faculty 32 Lecturers $1328 $426662 Stationary 17 Classes $21 $362

3

Rental Of Infrastructure For Conducting Classes. Electricity(Water/ Air conditioners / Lighting/ Projectors)

17 Classes $3552 $60444

4Student Fees (Tuition, Examination Fee)

1744 Students

$266 $465066

Student Salary1744 Students

$168 $293934

6 Total Cost1744 Students

$494 $862472

Not These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might

The total cost incurred by the organization per WASEian/batch:

S.No

Batch

Total Number Of WASEians

$ Projected Salary Per WASEian / Batch

$ Unit Cost Per WASEian for WASE Program / Batch @ $54/Month For 48 Months

Total Cost To The Organization/4 Years/WASEian

Average Cost $/ WASEian/ Day Averaged Over 4 Years

1 1995

25 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

2 1996

105 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

3 1997

147 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

4 199 159 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

85 199

976 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

6 2000

74 $8266 $400 $8666 $5.9

7 2001

0 $8266 $400 0 0

8 2002

94 $10306 $400 $8666 $5.9

9 2003

264 $10306$2592 $12898

$8.8

10 2004

706 $10306$2592 $12898

$8.8

11 2005

680 $10306 $2592$12898

$8.8

Note

These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might differ slightly.

The Profit (Return on Investment) To the Organization:

Accumulated Cost Reduction Competitiveness of WASEian over Engineers over 4 Years is almost 427%

Total Cost to the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $22,406,912($8.8/Day Average Salary * 365Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians = $22,406,912)

Total Income of the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $481,344,000($230 /Day Charge from Client* 300Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians = $481,344,000)

That is a whooping 21Times or 2100% Return on Investment to the Company. This cost doesn’t include the profit returns over the highly subsidized corporate loans Wipro Technologies would be taking from SBI in return for the business SBI has been able to achieve for the large amount of 4 Years long Fixed Deposit Bonds signed between the WASEians, SBI and Wipro Technologies.

Returns on Corporate Investment @ 20%/Annum by Wipro on highly subsidized corporate loans from SBI = $4,256,502

Principle Amount = $2,907,248(I.e. $1667 Bond Amount * 1744 WASEians = $2,907,248)

Return on Corporate Investment @ 20% after Paying Interest to SBI for loan @ 10% = $4,256,502Note: Corporate Investment @ 20% is a rough estimate.

The comparative compensation analysis WASEian Vs candidates of collaborative programs in other firms Vs B.Tech/M.C.A/ B.E.

Years Of ExperienceNo. Of Years Into WASE

Wipro Charges From ClientsAverage $/DayFor WASEians

Wipro Pays To WASEian$/Day

Industry Pay To Equivalent Candidates(WASE) $/ Day

Wipro Charges From ClientsAverage $/DayFor Engineers

Wipro Pays To BE/B.Tech/MCAAverage Pay$/Day

0-1 $40 $4.5 $10 $60 $151-2 $60 $5.5 $12 $80 $202-3 $100 $7.03 $14 $225 $313-4 $275 $11.4 $25 $300 $404-5 $450 $18.15 $51 $450 $48

NoteThese are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might differ slightly.

The Attrition - The Brain Drain:

Another strange aspect of this collaborative instrument is the high attrition rate after the program completes. The attrition rate amongst WASEians after completing their MS degree program i.e. in their fifth year of the organization is as high as 95% in some batches even higher. The question arises why the organization doesn’t have a policy for retaining WASE employees, when the organization claims of high investment in running the WASE program. Considering the high attrition rate amongst WASEian the Return on Investment of this instrument for the organization would be negligible, a scenario of loss, and not a good business practice. This is what might seem to an outsider, what is not accounted for is the full time employment extracted at dirt cheap rates, the business accomplished and created by the WASEians in their 4 year tenure compensates the cost incurred and rather contribute much more to the organizations profits as the economical competitiveness of WASE employee over normal employee is almost 4 times. These facts are not acknowledged by the

organization, and thus it makes it possible for the organization to make baseless claims such as high investment incurred in running the WASE program.

The obvious reasons why the WASEians leave the company after the completion of their program are stated below:

Reasons for High Attrition amongst WASEians:

1. Previous accomplishments are not considered and they have to start ground zero in the organization again. The organization differentiates 4 years full time employment by WASEians from 4 years full time employment that of normal employees. So incase one has to start afresh in an organization why not join a new better organization.

2. What would take five years for a normal employee even B.Sc. graduate to get a red band in Wipro Technologies Ltd would take WASEians 9 years in total i.e. 4 years of the WASE program and five years of services.

3. It takes another six months in the organization after completing four years program to get Onsite Opportunity Career banding, which makes one eligible for long term onsite opportunity.

4. After successful completion of the WASE program of 4 years, they are absorbed into B1 as employees. Assessed for B2 in next progression cycle or six months which ever is later? Fresh B.Tech candidate is absorbed into band B1 after confirmation i.e. one year of service, for the same it would take 5 years.

5. The compensation after completing WASE program offered to WASEians is ridiculously low. The compensation offered to an average WASE pass out in 2004 was a mere $6666/Annum in Wipro Technologies Ltd, while for the same candidate the industry pays $16000/Annum.

6. It makes more sense for WASEians to move out after four years of human abuse and exploitation, suffering and humiliation in the organization.

7. The policies of the WASE era has adversely impacted and would continue to impact WASEians in future in the form missed opportunities (onsite, academic growth, technical and managerial growth) which are widely denied to WASEians in one form or other in the 4 years of the program, wastage of time (1-2 years) due to penalties in form of prolongation of the program, incase of many female candidate unfruitful winding up of crucial growth period of their life in the WASE program which one expected as a period of learning, growth and development, as most of them reach an average age of 25 – 26 years by the end of the WASE program, that as per Indian standards is the new standard marriage age in urban

India generally leads to a gap in their career life and in many cases even end of their career life without any major accomplishment just at the time of reaping any benefits of this four year long program.

The Stakeholders - the Culprits and the Remedies:

To understand the stake of each party involved and responsible for the corrosion of a novel idea the need for a detailed and independent organizational study is become an utmost necessity before it leads to any further degradation of the society, its value system and before any more talent and young lives are wasted. Though this case study does take the initiative to suggest remedies and ask questions which need to be answered, but in no way it’s a complete study as a lot more would go in understanding the social, legal implication of such instruments. Primarily the remedies would come about with:

Primary Remedies:

1. Business organizations realizing their ethical and moral responsibilities they owe to their employees, to the community. The organizations need to accept the very elementary and universal truth about respecting its employee.

2. Academic institutes realizing their responsibility to do what ever it takes to polish the immense young talent of this country and doing this job as personally as possible. As academic institutes and the students are married to each other and no one else and certainly not the business organizations. Academic institutes should not become playgrounds for organization as in case of the WASE collaboration.

3. Governments, political and legal systems taking responsibility to organize labor in the country, introduce full proof labor laws to protect the interest of the common man of the country.

The Indian Education System:

By adopting 3+1 degree structures like [B.Sc (3Years) + (Honors Years) (1 Year)]

Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences:

BITS, Pilani has done great by expanding, entrepreneuring and making a bigger presence in industry and reaching out to wider masses. But what needs to be realized is such expansion shouldn’t be at the cost of brand equity that it has created for itself in past. The expansion shouldn’t be at the cost of quality of academic affairs. In case of

collaborative program such as WASE, the short coming of BITS, Pilani are failure of BITS to provide the same standards of academic for collaborative program as for its on-campus program.

The WASE program needs serious remodeling to bridge the gap what industry demands, it needs to focus on developing intellectual scientific wealth, promote collaboration amongst individuals, and promote entrepreneurship amongst it students. The unique selling point of WASE needs to be redefined, it needs to be repackaged and remarketed, what needs another look is the duration of course, content of the course, research and development components. The course should be future oriented, should be more than just what industry demands right now, it should have strong research and development, innovation components so as to become a driver for future technological revolution. All this can be achieved by following

1. Higher degree of direct involvement of BITS with the students in DLP and collaborative programs, strictly identifying and implementing standard invariant policies across all collaborative programs in different organization.

2. Define a process of segregating academic affairs from organization affairs, all academic affairs like attendance, fees, exams, curriculum, duration of the programs, faculty selection, timetable, contact sessions should be under direct and complete jurisdiction of BITS, while organization affairs like occupational activity, organizational growth, etc should be under direct and complete jurisdiction of the organization.

3. Implementing check procedures against organization so that collaborative programs are not misused by organization as an instrument of bonded labor, slavery, instrument of misusing gaps in the labor laws.

4. Collaborate with students already in the industry i.e. students of collaborative program, and not just the organizations, to innovate, to drive a new technological revolution.

5. Same selection process, guidelines and eligibility for faculty as done for on-campus faculty.

6. Define the maximum number of working hours for students to prevent misuse of labor laws especially incase the organization designate the candidates in these collaborative program as students rather than full time employees, for instance as in Wipro Technologies Ltd.

7. Reducing the duration of the course to three years. That’ll make the course more intense, more demanding. It’ll increase the turn around time, the pace of the cycles of sculpting the raw man power into highly technical readily deployable manpower.

8. Make the course more advanced, basic refresher courses can be compressed into first year of the course while reserving second year of the course for management and software engineering subjects and final year of the course for advanced computer science courses like AI, Neural Networks, Modeling and Simulation, Computational finance, Computational Science And Engineering and reserving final semester for dissertation.

9. Also give students the option of completing dissertation at BITS campus, or other national and international Research and development institutes and universities. Introduce more research and entrepreneur component in the program.

10. Provide a centralized resource and knowledge portal for on campus, off campus DLP and collaborative program students.

11. BITS need to be more responsible and answerable directly to the students in collaborative program. There should be a grievance and complaint helpdesk for to address students issues related to corporate abuse and exploitation, corporate mal practices apart from academic issues.

Clients/Customers to Indian IT firms offering such collaborative program, e.g. Wipro Technologies Ltd:

The international clients are totally ignorant about the labor practices in Wipro Technologies Ltd. The misuse of labor by terming them as students and extracting full time work out of them under a bond is totally hidden from the clients so are the malpractices like non billable WASEians being deployed in client projects working as shadows, underpaying labor largely by terming them as students so as in interest of their own profit, misusing the fact that large pool of talented human resource is available for employment at dirt cheap rates, thus hurting the national interest. What organization offering business to companies like Wipro Technologies Ltd can do is come in agreement with them on the terms and condition of the treatment labor being deployed in their project according to well defined international standards pertaining to labor laws, labor wages and benefits. What international firm can do without is pretending to be blind to such malpractices by them or their clients in the name of business as the western economies have a rich history and have already seen rise and fall of slavery and bonded labor and great reforms in their labor laws.

The Industry and the Labor Research Institutes:

The industry, the associations like NASSCOM have role here, after being aware of the malpractices of organizations they have a role to define the standards pertaining to labor rights, trade practices of the organization. This would create a world class environment with

guaranteed quality and well defined processes for IT related business, which would enable higher interoperability amongst international player, thus enabling Indian IT industry to make a bigger global mark and operate on the larger share of the total global IT business.

What these associations like NASSCOM can do is collaborate with labor research institutes of national and international relevance, collaborate with international IT associations and organize the IT sector, by defining guidelines and standards for Indian IT firms inline with international labor laws and best industry practices. These guidelines should define the relation between the education, experience, competency and minimum benefits associated with it. Also define the framework for such collaboration between academic institutes and industry to prevent any malpractices owing to non existence of laws.

The organizations like International Labor Organizations were created to address these labor related issues; it has a role to play here in India. In a developing country like India, which is already sharing the world stage with the world most developed countries, such reforms can be brought about easily and more transparently at least in organized sectors like IT. What needs to be resolved is the legitimacy of such collaborative programs, so that they don’t become the modern day bonded labor and slavery.

The Organization - Wipro Technologies Ltd:

The Program Philosophy:

The problem is not with just the philosophy of the program but with the whole organizational philosophy. The half hearted and hypocritical approach towards principles like values, integrity, respect for individuals. What lacks is the universal feeling on the part of the employees that they are honored, they are respected and it’s shouldn’t be based on what degree you have and from what school or what rank or title you have. What really matters is you are part of the team, and what can you contribute and are you doing your job. It’s about realizing the fact that people’s actions are directed towards achieving their own aspirations. People should have some part in making the decisions, which they are going to be involved with, so as they can more effectively implement them. The top management should set the overall objectives and goals and then get out of the way and let the people do their jobs. As it’s these engineers who are involved in the development of products, they should develop qualities to take ownership and responsibility of their actions, to implement and contribute more effectively. The decision making should be at the lowest possible level.

The exploitation of human beings, unethical labor practices under the cover of education should stop. The only ethically and morally right way around is acknowledging the fact that WASEians are full time employees contributing in whole to the business of the organization as any other employee in the organization and they also undergo full time educations on i.e. officially holiday i.e. Saturdays on their own free will for which the organization just acts as a facilitator rather than policing body. Such acknowledgement would certainly lead to change of status of WASEians from students to full time employees, revised compensation in line with the industry, revisions in the banding structure and career growth plans. The WASE program should have an outcome that 100% of these well groomed candidates take on major technical and managerial roles in the organizations or else be successful entrepreneurs outside. They should demonstrate leadership and make global impact, contribute to the community.

The key to such activities is establishing an enabling environment with people friendly policies setting up entrepreneurship incubators and drive people collaborate individually and take the stage. There should an active drive on extracting maximum technical, social in the form of white papers, design documents, computational models, re-engineering from the WASEians in the organization. The organization can successfully utilize the WASE academic circle for Research and Development Activities. Innovations can be realized if these young mind can be collected, allowed to collaborate within and outside the organization with like minds from worlds best universities, research and development institutes Initiative are required to provide an enabling environment for academic and technological exchanges through students’ exchange, guest faculty exchange, knowledge sharing, establishing cooperative research and development facilities. A collaborative environment where the best universities from around the world are connected with WASE. Rather than wasting such extreme talents on benches and C.o.E. (Centre of Excellences) for years and years, they can be utilized to develop product prototypes; this would also instill the core engineering skills in these candidates as they will learn aspects of product engineering, technology and resource management, optimization and project management.

The Training:

Wipro Technologies Ltd can work out a training collaboration with CDAC for world class advanced training; the training would be then oriented towards a sought after diploma from CDAC, there by instilling the candidates with advanced knowledge and making them highly

qualified. The trainings could also be directed towards various certifications like Sun, Rational, and Oracle etc.

PRP can be improved and better utilized by making it more advanced by introducing in-depth curriculum and redefining the course for certain domains. The PRP for telecommunication as in 2004 needed drastic improvements as most its contents were repetition of what candidates learnt in there FRP and hardly had any applicative contents or anything related to the real projects. At least PRP should have more hands on and practical sessions.

A 2-3 months project oriented activity can be introduced at the end of the training. The projects should be more focused towards research and development, oriented towards a product. Teams of 50 -100 candidates can be developed and given an overall goals and objectives, empowered with tools, delegated responsibilities, allowed to simulate and experience the project environment. It’ll teach candidates to collaborate, understand team work, and understand business dynamics. It’ll empower them to make decisions, take leadership and responsibility, make contribution, and take the stage. It’ll instill in the candidates confidence, ownership, risk taking and decision making qualities. It’ll lead to innovation; it’ll lead to a product, as a by product.

The Human Resource Management:

WASE has been utilized by the organization as an instrument to reduce operating cost significantly. As one of the responsibilities of the HR is that of compensation manager, it’s their job profile to control compensation, reduce resource cost by recruiting the cheapest available candidates, running operating cost reducing instruments such as WASE. The HR in case of WASE failed to focus on the principles of TQM – “Total Quality Management”, which states all parties i.e. customer, vendors, employees, community (employee family & society around), business stakeholders need to be equally taken care of & satisfied. In case of WASE neither the employees, nor the community around is taken care for. The HR practices has created a technological & economic divide by not respecting and acknowledging WASE employees for the efforts, the work, the business achieved, the revenues generated by the WASEians. What needs to be realized is individuals in any organizations are not like replaceable parts as in assembly line of a production plant, we are talking about human beings here, who need to be treated with respect.

The Policies:

The scrutinizing policies imposed on WASEians which severely restrict their growth in the organization have all been formulated by the HR department. These policies only serve the purpose of making WASEians uncomfortable, divided, and paranoid in the organization. Most of these policies are impractical, unethical and more of punishments rather than operating guidelines. The policies for example shortage of attendance attracts severe penalties like a year drop punishment, even in the cases where the WASE candidates were involved in project activities even on weekends for the organization itself due to work pressure from the practices, have severely hampered the WASEian’s trust in the system. The everyday problems of policies coming across day to day activities of WASEians leave them disinterested and unmotivated. The unessicary disparity induced by the HR amongst WASE and normal employees makes almost impossible for WASEians to connect and contribute, as it creates an environment which is void of respect for individuals, equality and trust. It absolutely makes policies pertaining to academic affairs formulated by Wipro Technologies Ltd questionable on both ethical, legal grounds as no academicians are involved in formulating such policies rather they are formulated by human resource managers, who are no way qualified as academicians. What needs to be realized is that in matter of student affairs, the initiative should be driven from the students themselves, the policy formulation should be done with equal involvement of students and academicians rather than only business organization management.

A more liberal and democratic approach should be adopted while devising policies for sensitive instruments like academics. The organization should restrict its jurisdiction to organizational affairs and only some aspects of academic affairs like facilitation of learning environment, infrastructure, while alienating itself from all other academic affairs like attendance, fees, exams, grade sheets, transcripts curriculum, and duration of the programs, faculty selection, timetable, and contact sessions. The candidates are full time employees undergoing educational program out of their free will without compromising on the occupational aspect of the WASE collaborative instrument. The organization should not deviate from its role of being just a facilitator for its employees to pursue higher education, while they contribute full time towards organizations business goals. Wipro Technologies Ltd is neither a university nor an educational institute it’s a professional business organization. The policies should be more process oriented, should be explicit and should have high traceability covering all possible scenarios. They should be accommodating, flexible and sensitive. The students and academicians should be directly of wholly involved in the process of devising policies

pertaining to academic affairs, as they are the only one’s who are impacted by these policies.

The HR department should initiate more transparent, organization wide open houses, employee referendum, all hands meets to discuss and communicate issues, opportunities, organizational & academic affairs, and research & development affairs etc.

The Academic Affairs:

The Employment:

According to BITS Pilani policy the candidature to academic program in which an employee is enrolled with the university as a part of DLP or collaborative program would terminate only incase if the employment bond between the employee and the organization is terminated by the organization or the employee, but incase the employee terminates the contract and there is a change of employment (generally in the organization with similar enabling environment), in that case if the new organization agrees to sponsor the employee for his education , the employee can still continue with the program from where it was suspended. Example: if Wipro Technologies Ltd WASE employees if decide in the middle of the bond period say in 3 rd semester to terminate the employment bond with Wipro Technologies Ltd and join a new IT firm say Mahindra British Telecom, Cognizant Technology Systems, HCL Limited, IBM and if these firm have no objection with the employee to continue his educational program and sign a sponsorship contract with BITS, its very much possible for the employee to continue the academic program from the semester it was suspended in the new organization.

The Stipend:

The Cost:

As per the BITS, Pilani policy i.e. the organization is not liable to pay the candidates fees for the educational program, unless organization feels an obligation to sponsor the candidates out of its will, the candidate being a full time employee with the organization is supposed to bear the cost of education, while the organization is liable to pay the candidate for their services. The cost of $50 per WASEian per Month incurred by the organization for facilitating WASE program if calculated

and analyzed is actually deducted from the anyways underpaid salary. Also when the organization is also investing in other training programs like M.S. Microelectronics from BITS, M.B.A from Symbiosis, and PGDSM from IIMB for normal employees and there is no disparity between candidates undergoing these programs and other employees, so morally there shouldn’t be any discrimination with WASEians also.

The Profit/Return on Investment to the Organization:

Accumulated Cost Reduction Competitiveness of WASEian over Engineers over 4 Years is almost 427%

Total Cost to the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $22,406,912($8.8/Day Average Salary * 365Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians = $22,406,912)

Total Income of the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $481,344,000($230 /Day Charge from Client* 300Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians = $481,344,000)

That is a whooping 21Times or 2100% Return on Investment to the Company. This cost doesn’t include the profit returns over the highly subsidized corporate loans Wipro Technologies would be taking from SBI in return for the business SBI has been able to achieve for the large amount of 4 Years long Fixed Deposit Bonds signed between the WASEians, SBI and Wipro Technologies.

Returns on Corporate Investment @ 20%/Annum by Wipro on highly subsidized corporate loans from SBI = $4,256,502

Principle Amount = $2,907,248(I.e. $1667 Bond Amount * 1744 WASEians = $2,907,248)Return on Corporate Investment @ 20% after Paying Interest to SBI for loan @ 10% = $4,256,502

Note: Corporate Investment @ 20% is a rough estimate.

End Of Case Study

Consolidated Issues v0 1.doc By Another WASE 2004 BDC Student

 I. MS by BITS Pilani?

The level of knowledge?

1. Knowledge being imparted in the course DOES NOT gives us the feeling that we are doing MS from an institution as reputed as BITS Pilani, that too in collaboration with Wipro Technologies – which provides an excellent exposure to the latest practices, technologies and tools available in the market.

2. The theoretical knowledge imparted by the faculty in the class is sometimes even below than what we studied at the bachelor’s level.

3. This is considered at par with on-campus program, we at least expect exposure and strength of curriculum, standard of examinations conducted and quality of students enrolled to be at par.

4. No practical labs. Expect us to learn programming in languages like C, JAVA, etc without labs. Computers in the training rooms are switched off or not all the computers have necessary softwares for people to practice. LAB sessions should be conducted. We suggest 1 hr theory + 1 hr lab for such classes considering that syllabus is not too vast and people grab faster with practicals.

5. Management says it is on job training but does not realize that not all are working on same technology what they are learning in their current semester. Some may not even have access to those softwares for practice and no one is expected to do their course-related practice on client machines.

     Infrastructure?

At classes conducted in WIPRO campus

1. 115-120 students sitting in a training center with maximum capacity of 90.

2. 60 is ideal strength of any class (agrees faculty). Still they are asked to manage huge batches for lack of infrastructure, faculties and cost-effectiveness.

3. Need well-maintained projectors, markers, mike, etc.4. With 400 Students in a batch, Only < 10 books are available in

Library

At classes conducted outside WIPRO campus (eg. Dayananad Sagar Engg College)

1. 90 students sitting in a class of maximum capacity 60.2. 60 is ideal strength of any class (agrees faculty). Still they are asked

to manage huge batches for lack of infrastructure, faculties and cost-effectiveness.

3. No fans, AC available. There are 2-3 floor fans, not much bigger than table fans to adjust with. No more fans available.

4. Amenities like proper projectors for slides, etc are not available.

Quality of faculties?

1. With ever-increasing number of batches and strength, not due attention is being given to selection of quality faculties.

2. WIPRO says BITS decide on faculties and they have no say over there. But management need to take it seriously and sort out with them because it impacts WIPRO’s name. (refer BITS Bulletin 2003-2004 pg V-1 “faculty/resources persons are drawn from the institute, the participating organizations as well as experts from other institutions”)

3. Faculties lack commitment towards students.4. Faculties do slide-reading instead of imparting knowledge through

effective case-studies and assignments.5. The examination standard has gone down drastically. Ask any

person to compare examination papers of this year with any of the previous year’s. They are not even of standard of Internal exams of colleges, forget tough papers of BITS.

6. The evaluation procedure has many faults. Examples are there where faculties have given marks to one and not to another on correct answers (also at places where answer is one-word as YES/NO.) There had been examples where faculties have not given marks on correct answers, there are calculation mistakes and when brought to the notice of faculties/WASE co-ordinator, they deduct marks from other answers, creating fear among people who approach.

7. Poor communication skills of many faculties.8. Poor knowledge of the subject among many faculties.9. Faculties use phrases like 'GET OUT', 'YOU WILL HAVE IT IN THE

EXAM', and many more.10. In the first hour itself the faculty walks in 15 minutes late. Has to

let in students who come even later; can't question them!11. We also suggest them to forward the slides in advance instead of

sending it pretty late. Would help us prepare on topics in advance and clarify doubts in class.

12. WASE program is becoming nothing but a wild chase of marks and a degree.

Quality of students?

1. Students intake has grown in leaps and bounds.

a. 2002 – 94b. 2003 – 264c. 2004 - 706d. 2005 – 680

2. Quality of intake has been affected. Eligibility criteria like minimum 65%, Mathematics in graduation, etc exist only on papers. Many people were identified failing in such criteria but were allowed.

3. Quality of written examinations, technical interviews and HR rounds had degraded badly. Earlier it was a pride to be through; now it is anyone and everyone.

Extra initiatives

1. Motivations were kept high by awarding trophies to people who managed to maintain CGPA of 9 an above. This has been stopped.

2. Feel of being student of BITS was given by organizing convocation at BITS campus for pass-outs. This has been stopped as a cost-cutting measure.

II. Quality of FRP/PRP

1. Earlier system was automated which used to give score on click of a button. From 2005 batch onwards, the system only mentioned CLEARED/NOT CLEARED. Marks were announced the next day. (No data available to cross-check even if a student is sure to be through). Decreases transparency and gives power in hands of management to decide anything as no one is aware of anything.

2. Minimum 80% pass-marks brought down to 70%.3. It was 80% minimum in both independently. Need to pass FRP for

PRP exams. Now, they made it an average of both exams to be above 70%.

4. Earlier when people failed in FRP/PRP, they were asked to leave the organization. For 2004 batch, they were asked to continue with no increment for 3 months. For 2005 batch, they were asked to continue with no increment for 3 months and extended bond period of 6 months.

5. Faculties answers different from answers written in slides/notes provided. Not sure which one is right choice.

6. At the end of the day, not a single student was asked to quit on basis of failure in FRP/PRP. The basis of existence of such trainings and policies come into question.

III. RELEVANCE OF CONTACT SESSIONS

1. In some of the cases, the level of education imparted by the faculty has been very low and unsatisfactory. If the contact sessions are so ineffective, then their relevance is seriously questionable.

2. By consuming our time on Saturdays, these contact sessions waste the precious little time we are left with for self study after working throughout the week in office.

3. BITS has no minimum 75% criteria. So, either the quality of contact sessions should be improved or we should not be forced to attend the classes.

4. We feel that when we are doing a post-graduation, it is not about reading slides and scoring marks. As a student of MS, I am expected to cover the portions for myself. Faculties are there to give brief overview of problem and explain them in terms of case studies and assignments. Do you think students, who have been selected as best of graduates from best of colleges by WIPRO's quality intake policy, aren't capable enough to read slides/books for themselves and understand the subject? Don't you think what they want is extra knowledge which they have accumulated by years of teaching expertise and not what is written in books? Please improve the ever-falling standard of MS. It is impacting the name and fame of BITS + WIPRO.

 IV. COURSE DURATION

1. The course is expected to be over in four years. Inspite of delays for senior batches, repeated reminders/queries to TTD on delays, complete statistics showing that delays are just prolonging instead of coming down, there is no proper response from TTD except promises that they are in discussion with BITS on schedule.(for past don’t know how many months) and things should go better.

2. WASEians are not even aware of policies in affect during extended period and TTD is failing to provide even that in terms of Bond (which expires in August, 2008), salary in extended period (as we have defined salary only upto August, 2008), year and duration of completion in the MS degree certificate, and any other policies(implicit or explicit) in effect which affect us directly or indirectly.

V.DEVIATION IN THE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES If there is a deviation in class schedule; we need to

be informed about that. For example, if there is more than one session of a subject in one day instead of one session per subject in a day, then not coming for such Saturdays will increase the risk of attendance shortage. It is to be noted that some of the WASEians from the 2004 batch were not allowed to give their end semester exams due to attendance shortage, which happened for them in a subject for which there were two sessions taken on a single day (without prior intimation). TTD is not even considering their case and they end-up losing a year.

1. VI.POLICIES

2. There is a set of policies listed for WASE in http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/e_wase_policy_student.htm. They are incomplete and provide only for overall/general scenarios.

3. We were not aware of single while joining and are not even aware of many after 2 years of completion. Why TTD (after 11 successful years of running the program) still do not have any clearly defined policies for us?

4. They keep changing the policies without even intimating us (forget consulting us). We do not even know policies which exist today would be there tomorrow or not?

VII. CONFLICTING POLICIES

1. BITS policy says a student would be awarded NC for a semester if he fails to take up exams for it. This means they can complete their 3rd semester inm parallel to other semesters or after 8th and would be awarded degree after completion of all.

CONFLICT: Why students, who were asked to refrain from writing 3rd semester, not allowed to continue the 4th with a Not Cleared cert for 3rd. (This makes them lose only 6 months. Asking them to continue their 3rd with juniors assure them a complete one year). What are they going to do for one full semester when juniors are doing their second semester?

REASONS WE COMPREHEND: Management have asked them to continue in junior batch. Makes things simpler for them to handle in absence of well-defined policies on the matter, get 2 years experienced WASEians again at the cost which they pay to WASEians with 1 year experience (which would be a lot higher if

they are continuing after 8th sem), get them to work for another 6 months on a low stipend.

2. Policy says: We would be awarded MS degree on successful completion of all the semesters and grade sheets at the end of each semester. (refer page V-7 of BITS Bulletin 2003-2004)

CONFLICT: They are not providing us with marksheets/transcripts for the semesters we have completed. On what basis are they being stopped by WIPRO when the same is being provided by BITS?

REASONS WE COMPREHEND: With marksheets in hand as proof that we were part of this program and that after 1 year of completion, we are fit with 16 years of education and eligible to apply for GRE/GMAT, etc, management wants us to restrict from exploring such ideas.

3. BITS Policy says that this program is for employees of an organization where the organization is willing to sponsor their program. (refer page V-4,5,7,37 of BITS Bulletin 2003-2004)

CONFLICT: WIPRO says we are students and not employees of WIPRO. Thus we cease to be a part of this program altogether. Who are we?

REASON WE COMPREHEND: All the policies which refrain us from employee benefits like Employee Referral, QPLC, etc is validated.

4. Appointment letter says that we have our study hours from Monday to Friday.

CONFLICT: We are full-time billed employees serving the organization. They are trying to portray that we are having our on-job training classes during the weekdays. Now, why are we billed to clients as employees? Why is there no defined curriculum of our study pattern for these four years? Why are different students into different curriculums/trainings and why they do not change every semester? Why no curriculum evaluation of these trainings? Appraisal is at organization level and not BITS level? If this is classes for us, they should be evaluated and we should be awarded marksheets for that.

REASON WE CONPREHEND: It was mentioned there to support their statements that we are students.

5. Policy says that if a student is not able to attend classes for official reasons including onsite travel, he needs the approval of PM/TM and TTD and his case would be considered on official grounds.

CONFLICT: Why TTD tries all possible ways to refrain WASEians to go onsite or work on weekends (for releases possible only on weekends)? What is the basis of attendance issue when we do have a policy in place to take care of it?

REASON WE COMPREHEND: Clueless and demoralizing; when these things are also being done for the benefit of the organization and not personal.

6. BITS Policy says that Examinations to be conducted on basis of Viva, Seminar, GD, Assessment of Proj reports, Seminars and course examinations.CONFLICT: Never heard of anything else but course examinations.REASON WE COMPREHEND: Cost and Time factor. Time factor can be attributed to poor planning.

VIII. POINT OF CONTACTS

WIPRO co-ordinator says the decisions are taken by BITS on academic fronts. WIPRO just provide infrastructure and students to BITS. BITS co-ordinator says : BITS conducts the M.S Program in collaboration with Wipro. The policies for running the program are jointly worked out and implemented by both the organizations. If you have any suggestions which can enhance the effectiveness of the program you are welcome to suggest the same to Wipro. Wipro management who in turn may take up the issue with our institute for analyzing the feasibility of implementing them.

IX. ANSWERS

Most of these queries and problems have already been informed to the TED and the TT. The open houses were conducted, promises given but the answers never come out from them. All that we hear is "Have been escalated", "Things are in Progress", "We will work on the same". In an organization like ours we expected issues to be resolved sooner and especially when they are affecting around 1700 people. In the Q&A session Pratik said they'll come back to us in 2 week's time. Its 2 months now and there has been no communication yet.

X. WHERE DO WE STAND?

When we compare ourselves to the fraternity of people doing the same from other companies like IBM, PATNI, HCL, CTS, MBT, Mindtree, etc.. Here are a few of the major differences we feel.

ISSUE WASEians Others in same program from BITS with other companies

Comments

Duration 4 years 2 years in HCL4 in CTS2 in Satyam2In Tata Elxsi4 in MBT2 in Mindtree

Can be justified considering syllabus covered in 4 years is vast. But need to improve on quality of it.

Stipend Rs. 5200 (first 3 months)RS. 5700 (3 mths – 1 yr)Rs. 7450 (2nd year)Rs. 9200 (3rd year)Rs. 15200 (4th year)

Average Rs.10,500 startingIncrement based on appraisal every 6mths/year. No fixed slab.

What we get in 3rd year is still lower than what others start in their 1st year? Is it justified?

Status Students Employees Why diff when its same program from same institute?

Salary/Stipend

Stipend Salary

Onsite opportunites

Refrained to 3 months in the whole MS program of 4 years

Equal opportunities as other employees

Why refrain when its for official purpose?

Increment Fixed slab Appraisal basis Performance driven is

motivating. Why not us?

Mark-sheets At completion of MS program

At end of each sem

Against policy on WIPRO’s behalf.

Experience Certificate

As a student/trainee As an employee

Against policy as we are supposed to be enrolled as employees.

Schedule Delay increasing further every semester

Existing Delay decreasing every semester

Why if BITS is responsible?

Employee Referral

Not for WASEians Valid How does it make any difference to WIPRO, who referred the person if the person who was referred is good.

Faculty/Course

From BITS From BITS So no difference in degree or expertise.

Other benefits like Leaves/Medical Benefits

Different from other employees.

Same benefits are extended to all.

Why should number of leaves be different when both contribute the same efforts?

SAP details Not shown even if you are leading a team

Your right details are shown

Why the role is given but not acknowledged?

XI. LEGACY Vs LATEST 

After 11 years of expertise in running the course, WIPRO is failing to identify that earlier there was no competition and WIPRO attracted cream. Brand image might not hold for long with companies like IBM, TCS, PATNI, CTS, and HCL also competing with this

concept. If these companies would pull in best students with the above comparisons, WIPRO might have to settle for low quality, who have no options but to get in WASE program. This would impact productivity and quality across all projects and verticals.

 Analyse for yourself and suggest why would cream-crowd prefer

WIPRO to others for this program. So this would be a short term concern of us WASEians (that is another 2 yrs) but in the long-term, it’s WIPRO who might lose out on this concept if corrective actions are not taken right now.

End Of Consolidated Issues.

Voice of a WASEian Regarding The program and the Sessions From A Student From WASE, HDC .

From: joy To: P.B. Kotur (WT01 - TALENT TRANSFORMATION & STAFFING) Cc: 'Vinodkumar Bethi' ; [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 10:59 AMSubject: Voice of a 'Wase'ian! Reg. the program and the Sessions. Dear Sir, I am a WASE (2003) student. I had a few thoughts and I felt it best to share them with you. This is obviously regarding the sessions we have during the weekends. These are no complaints or grievances rather some suggestions which I felt might generate some enthusiasm and participation during the sessions. This comes after some exercise we had for the past two weeks during the “Algorithm Design” classes. We had some of our friends giving seminars on certain topics, which indeed was a welcome change.What is happening now is definitely good. But I strongly feel it can be made much better and being part of an organization, that is open for thoughts, I was confident you will appreciate these suggestions. But why do I feel change is needed?

(Please don’t mind the length of the mail. I will ensure I will make sense. First I would like to express what I/we go through for 5 days of the week before we step into the classes. Later I shall put forward some concerns and suggestions regarding the weekend sessions)

1. Program Design:

1. The program is designed in such a way that we have to work (like any other employee) for 5days of the week and study (like any other student) for 1 day of the week. Simple math! (71.4% of the week - Work, 14.18% of the week – Student) So we are quickly juggling two roles, demands of each of which are unmistakably high. Within 14.18% of the week we need to change our garb because we need to wear exact garb of an employee (work, talk and behave) for five days. It’s a competitive environment and absolutely challenging. I swear it’s a great feeling being a professional and still being called a student. Sincerely, it takes all our mind, energy and commitment to excel at the place of work. Most of the managers have expressed their satisfaction regarding our deliverables. (At least from what we were told, assuming the frankness of the senior managers who express the same) Now why I said all this is to let you understand what happens with us when you are not with us in our cubicles. Now, many good managers shoot ponderous questions. Some of them:

a. It’s not impossible b. Many did it before you. Many in this world are doing, so you

can also do it. Incidentally, one lecturer also pointed out the same

c. You get to work on “live projects”, that’s a great experience! d. You are young blood, you can do that! e. All of them are right! (Partly right or incompletely stated)

2. It’s not impossible but it’s very difficult! Why? Because the work place we are talking about is not ideal and not completely predictable! With all the uncertainties and difficulties (No one can deny), we are expected to meet the expectations. We are doing that! That comes with some cost. Extra effort to execute on par with a normal employee (who gets a handsome pay, perks and benefits – befitting treatment for the effort, not to forget QPLC and many more I don’t know of because all I only know is one thing - “stipend”) to tell ourselves what our effort is doesn’t deserve a befitting treatment is, may be, another painful cost.

3. WASE is a unique program. Which manager doesn’t boast about it? But then, are many doing it?? One of them should be true (Many/unique)! Well our seniors definitely are a hope for us that we can see it through. Seniors! Who are they now? I never met and interacted with one until my third month in Wipro when accidentally one of my colleagues pointed out. Wipro always documents all it does to look back and learn and get better. We would love to read their experiences (a living

document) to get some of our inexplicable doubts and problems sorted out. All problems can’t be sorted out with the managers (trained to be diplomats) but need some one, who has been through the problem (he/she knows what it feels like in that shoe) Is it possible to think of a possibility that our seniors could interact with us. I came to know from some of my friends that in BITS they have a way to relate to their seniors (ID pop and ID mom…. ID cousins and ….) Am I asking too much?? It’s definitely not impossible with such latest technology to get people together. Simple! You say – “Many have done it before!” I want to know how they have done it before.

4. Live project/ dead project, what people look for is the satisfaction that they created something that works. Normal employee or abnormal employee (called students) will have the same expectations! From what is clear many don’t get to work on the development projects (5/10% of all may be lucky lot to be in one) I wish I could give the correct number. Well the point is that the other 70/80/90% don’t get to be those lucky ones. Some get to work constantly in development projects and some are constantly deprived. In all it’s not a very great experience working with Word and Excel all the 71% of the term in Wipro.

5. Finally we are young blood but still we need that consideration that any other human gets. Thanks to WISH scheme. A breather indeed that management realizes that young blood can still fall sick!

 WHAT IS A WASIAN LIKE BEFORE HE/SHE ATTENDS A CLASS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM/HER FOR THAT 71% OF THE WEEK BEFORE THE OMINOUS WEEKEND!!Before ‘Wase’ian comes to the class he comes stressed, tired and sometimes dissatisfied. Therefore we need to consider the way the Sessions are designed. 6. Session Design:

1. Lecturer-lectured awareness: ‘Wase’ian should come to the class with the complete consciousness that he/she is a student but to face a lecturer who is completely unconscious of the lot he is lecturing. I mean with no idea of what we go through (our situation/needs/problems) the rest of the week. But the question you might ask – Should he know?? Yes he should. If it is just delivering few words of the subject, a taped lecture will do.

2. Lecture span: With all the stress we come to class and it’s very difficult to focus our attention on 120 minutes of endless stream of words. Please accept the realty Sir! With an attention span of a normal human being some 30 minutes at most, how can a student be expected to give un-divided total concentration? There definitely should be some way to keep the attention of the student for the whole stretch of 120 minutes. I read somewhere – “Most people have an attention span in an intensive situation such as flight instruction of little more than 10 to 15 minutes at best. Beyond this point nothing more is absorbed, thus continued instruction beyond this point is wasted. The instructor must learn to monitor the attention span of each student as each will have a different attention span depending on many variables, including the particular student, his disposition on the day, the stage of instruction and not least, the expertise and behavior of the instructor.” I would request you to reconsider the new parameter when absorbing a lecturer for the next semester. The one who can make his point across and keep the instruction interesting for 120 minutes. Please consider this request on a very practical level. It is more important than having a PhD in a subject or 15 years industrial experience. What’s the point if he can’t deliver the knowledge, he/she has gathered? I am sure you will not disagree that the lectures should be thought provoking.

3. Course Design: It’s great and well structured but not without a problem. Let me take an example. We have a course “Object Oriented Design”; the course assumes the prior knowledge of JAVA, most of us don’t work with. Definitely when we are graded relatively then all should be graded from the same base line, which has to be set, at least when making assumptions like knowing a technology itself. Obviously a person who knows JAVA is in a better position. Good managers say – “If you have the drive you will learn it” we have two managers, one at office who expects me to pick up one technology and one at my classes who asks me to learn another by myself. Ultimately I need to have two drivers one to drive me to learn one technology and the other to drive me to learn another technology. There is a problem here – There are two drivers and one driven! Consider the work hours in the S/W companies and the number of hours he/she needs for himself and the time he/she spends leaning two new technologies.

4. Initiatives and suggestions:

1. We can’t have all the softwares needed for our course on our systems at the work place because of license problems. Please consider a Lab/hall (dedicated for us) so that we can use the same to have any discussions/practice sessions during the week. Most of our lecturers expect us to practice but where is the platform to do that?

2. Have Brainstorms/Discussions/Seminars now and then to increase the participation of the student. Encourage student initiatives.

3. Lectures given at various locations can be recorded (audio) and shared across the other locations. (Is it not a culture in Wipro to share the knowledge?) Interested students can attend the audio sessions during the week. It is not impossible but please Sir, think about the good it does!

The point is that 8 hrs of instruction needs to change drastically. Practically it’s not enough! Very little can be done about our work conditions but something can be done about the way the sessions are executed and the lectures, the way they are delivered. Sir, I express this to you because I am sure you can initiate a change! Thanks and RegardsJoy Joseph DarlaWipro Technologies

End Of Joy’s Concern

The Dynamic Overtime $1.6 Cash Claim Policy:

The Email Chain between WASEians and TED, TTD, Wividus

The chain exhibits the dynamics of the policy, how it is manipulated by TTD in real-time to avoid confrontation and reverted back as matter becomes a cold case.

The Email Chain Follows:(In Original Order)

FYI

From: Ashish Goyal (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT) Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 10:30 AMTo: Srilakshmi Kesari (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)Cc: Gujjari Achala (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks)Subject: RE: Rejected reimbursement claims for WASE-ians

Srilakshmi/Gujjari,

As per the policy, there are restrictions on the cash reimbursements that are available for WASE students. If the claims have been allowed earlier, I am sorry to say those have been infringements of the policy.

Regards,

Ashish

From: Srilakshmi Kesari (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT) Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 10:01 AMTo: Ashish Goyal (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)Cc: Gujjari Achala (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks)Subject: RE: Rejected reimbursement claims for WASE-ians

Hi Ashish,              For some guys the claims have been rejected but for some they have been approved….Pls look into this.           

Regards,Srilakshmi KesariAssociate -TED[Madhapur]Ph-30795062/30792247

PS - My mail ID has changed from [email protected] to [email protected].

From: Gujjari Achala (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks) Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 9:39 AMTo: Srilakshmi Kesari (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)Subject: Rejected reimbursement claims for WASE-iansImportance: High

Hi,

I am Achala gujjari (11000773). I had applied for transport reimbursement on 10.10.2005.  I have received a mail on Saturday which states

Your claim: 9613011027 has been rejected for the following reason:As per policy WASE-ians are not eligible for any cash reimbursements.

This is not the first time I have applied for reimbursement. Then, why is the sudden change in policy? Does this mean WASE-ians are not eligible for any kind of cash reimbursements further on?

Please look into the matter or redirect me to the concerned authority.  

Thanks and regardsAchala

Thanks Sumit, But i want to get clear on something.Mathew claims that there had been some confusion and its been resolved now, but Ashish has maintained , till today (check the attachment), that WASEians are not eligible for any cash reimbursement.

So is the policy being changed for WASE , or is it that Wividus is continuing as previously.If later is the case then we need to take up this matter further.  

From: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:19 PMTo: Naresh Goyal (WT01 - Embedded Systems); Celine Anthony (WT01 - E-ENABLING); Nitya Ramagopal (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks); Sapna Nair (WT01 - MANUFACTURING); Arushi Srivastava (WT01 - Technology,Media,Transportation&Services); Akshat Drona (WT01 - Testing Services); Sushil Surana (WT01 - Testing Services); Subject: FW: Regarding Cash ClaimsFYi

With RegardsSumit AgrawalMobile: 09886569141 

From: Mathews Abraham (WH01 - WIVIDUS) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:15 PMTo: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems)Subject: RE: Regarding Cash Claims

There was a confusion on this.  This has been resolved.  Concerned processing group has been advised to revise their stand. With kind regardsMathews(D) 51354103 (M) 9845186594VOIP 806 1638  

From: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:03 PMTo: Mathews Abraham (WH01 - WIVIDUS)Subject: Regarding Cash Claims

Hello Sir

Please let us know are we Waseians Entitled for Cash reimbursements.

Till Last month we were doing the same, but today I got some forwarded mail from our friends stating that there is a change in policy and now onwards we are not entitled for the same.

Please Clarify.

Thanks & RegardsSumit AgrawalMobile: 09886569141 Nitya,

All WASE students are eligible for reimbursement of expenses under the early/late/holiday working policy. My apologies for the inconvenience caused.The processing team in Wividus has been informed, and they will process all similar claims which have been rejected.

Regards,

Ashish

From: Nitya Ramagopal (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 11:15 AMTo: Ashish Goyal (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)Cc: Celine Anthony (WT01 - E-ENABLING); Arushi Srivastava (WT01 - Technology,Media,Transportation&Services); Naresh Goyal (WT01 - Embedded Systems)Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]

Hi Ashish, This is one of the claim numbers 9611048544 which has been rejected.And this was the reason provided. 

Dear Sir / Madam,Your claim :9611048544 has been rejected for the following reason :As per policy WASE-ians are not eligible for any cash reimbursements. Thanks and Regards,WIVIDUS

Regards,

Nitya

From: Naresh Goyal (WT01 - Embedded Systems) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 11:10 AMTo: Ashish Goyal (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)Cc: Celine Anthony (WT01 - E-ENABLING); Nitya Ramagopal (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks); Arushi Srivastava (WT01 - Technology,Media,Transportation&Services)Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi Ashish,             FYI

Thanks and regards

RegardsNaresh Goyalph:25502001 - extn:6329

From: wividus helpdesk Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 7:17 PMTo: Abhijeet Vinodkumar (WT01 - MANUFACTURING)Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi,We shall check and revert tomorrow.Thank you for contacting Wividus Helpdesk.We look forward to assist you better.Have a great day ahead. Regards,Wividus Helpdesk--Original Message--From: [email protected]: 11/14/2005 6:11:47 PMTo: [email protected]: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi Can you kindly let me know as to when and why was this policy introduced as I have done cash reimbursements in the past? Also as we might be having some of our snacks/refreshments bills dated before the introduction of this policy, Can you kindly assist me as to whehter I can claim these bills? If yes How? & if no why not?

 Regards,Abhi

From: wividus helpdesk Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 5:41 PMTo: Abhijeet Vinodkumar (WT01 - MANUFACTURING)Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi,Waseians are not eligible for cash claims.Thank you for contacting Wividus Helpdesk.We look forward to assist you better.Have a great day ahead. Regards,Wividus Helpdesk

--Original Message--From: [email protected]: 11/14/2005 5:09:35 PMTo: [email protected]: [email protected]: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi, Can you kindly look into the following query? Regards,Abhijeet 

From: wividus helpdesk Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 2:27 PMTo: Abhijeet Vinodkumar (WT01 - MANUFACTURING)Subject: Re: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]Hi,  We have received your mail. There will be delay in response to your queries as we are receiving huge number of queries.  Kindly bear with us.  In case of emergency, please contact [email protected]   Thanks and  Regards,

Wividus Helpdesk

----- [email protected] Wrote ----- Hi, This is just to clarify as to whether wasians are eligible for cash claims?If yes, when and why was this policy changed?Also if the bill dates are earlier to that of introduction of this policy, how could we get it reimbursed? Regards,Abhijeet Hi all, Well the policy has changed again, try going to cash claims and submit a claim it will say no line items found i.e. ( early/late food expenses).For employees there will be Lunch dinner and breakfast, eligible ammount shows as 75/-.  Thanks & regardsSasmit HotaApplication Services TeamGlobal Data Repositories / WorldbaseOffice : +91-80-30292242 

From: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:19 PMTo: Naresh Goyal (WT01 - Embedded Systems); Celine Anthony (WT01 - E-ENABLING); Nitya Ramagopal (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks); Sapna Nair (WT01 - MANUFACTURING); Arushi Srivastava (WT01 - Technology,Media,Transportation&Services); Akshat Drona (WT01 - Testing Services); Sushil Surana (WT01 - Testing Services); Subject: FW: Regarding Cash ClaimsFYi

With RegardsSumit AgrawalMobile: 09886569141 

From: Mathews Abraham (WH01 - WIVIDUS) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:15 PMTo: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems)Subject: RE: Regarding Cash Claims

There was a confusion on this.  This has been resolved.  Concerned processing group has been advised to revise their stand. With kind regardsMathews(D) 51354103 (M) 9845186594VOIP 806 1638  

From: Sumit Agrawal (WT01 - Embedded Systems) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 2:03 PMTo: Mathews Abraham (WH01 - WIVIDUS)Subject: Regarding Cash Claims

Hello Sir

Please let us know are we Waseians Entitled for Cash reimbursements.

Till Last month we were doing the same, but today I got some forwarded mail from our friends stating that there is a change in policy and now onwards we are not entitled for the same.

Please Clarify.

Thanks & RegardsSumit AgrawalMobile: 09886569141 

The Onsite VISA Policy:

Internal TTD mail about VISA policies for WASEians:

From: Vasudeva Nayak (WT01 - TALENT TRANSFORMATION & STAFFING)  Sent: Thu 6/9/2005 8:53 AMSubject: Visas for WASE and Contract employees

Hi,

As we are taking more WASE trainees and Contract employees and put them on client projects, the need for onsite requirements will grow.

Immigration Laws differs from country to country and have some restrictions on the type of visas. Hence it is very important to know the eligibility criteria and type of visas by which we can depute them for onsite projects.

Some important Country wise analysis of Work permits for WASE and Contractee’s: 

Country Type WASEContractee

Remarks

USA H1 Yes Yes

For WASE, at least 3 years of training program should be completed. US recognize 4 year degree or 3 years experience as one year degree.

  L1 / BL1 No NoNot Possible, as applicant should be with Wipro for at least 1 year on roles.

  B1 Yes

Yes – sponsorship from contractors.

For WASE B1 only for advance training purpose.

UKWP – Tier 1

No NoEmployee must be with Wipro for at least 6 months.

WP – Tier II

No Yes

Advertisement must clearly specify that position is contractual and for specified period. Cannot be paid Indian salary and UK allowances, instead lump sum payment every month?

WP- TEWS( Trainee WP)

Yes No

Training work permit can be processed for WASE. However, they cannot travel to UK after completion of training for 1 or 2 years. Secondly, training schedule is required duly certified by the trainer i.e. our client? Whether client is willing to do the same?Payment of salary?

  BV NoYes – by contractor.

Canada

Work Permit (Pilot Project Scheme)

No Yes.Under pilot project – minimum 2 years IT experience is required.

Work Permit (HRDC approval)

Yes Yes

For WASE, employee should have at least 1 years of training completed.

 Business Visa

No NoGiven only for business discussion for 15 days maximum.

FranceWork permit

No NoAn employee should have worked at least 1 year with Wipro

 Business Visa

No

Yes – if working with Offshore

ItalyWork Permit

No NoAn employee should have worked at least 1 year with Wipro

 Business Visa

No

Yes  - if working with Offshore

BelgiumWork Permit

No No  

 Business Visa

No

Yes – if working with offshore.

Switzerland

Work Permit

 Business Visa

No NoGiven only for business discussion.

SwedenWork Permit

No No

Offer of employment need to be signed between employee and Wipro. Legal problem?Payroll processing?

  Business Visa

No Yes – if working

with offshore

FinlandWork Permit

No No

Offer of employment need to be signed between employee and Wipro. Legal problem?Payroll processing?

 Business Visa

No No  

Japan COE Yes NoTraining work permit can be processed for WASE. Training

 Business visa

Yes

Yes – if working with offshore.

Training visas can be processed for WASE. Training schedule has to be attached along with the application

GermanyWork Permit

No No

Offer of employment need to be signed between employee and Wipro. Legal problem?Payroll processing?

 Business Visa

No

Yes – if working with offshore.

AustraliaWork Permit

No No

Offer of employment need to be signed between employee and Wipro. Legal problem?Payroll processing?

 Business Visa

No

Yes – if working with offshore

 With Warm Regards,M V Nayak

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITYWednesday, January 31, 2007

ANALYTICAL STUDY OF WASE POLICIES AND DRAFT OF PROSPECTIVE REFORMS IN WASE POLICIES - W.A.S.E REFORMS 2005 - TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

INDEX

1.) CONTENT TABLE ………………………………………………………………………..1

2.) FORWARDING LETTER TO WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES …………………………….2

3.) SUMMARY / INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ………………………….................3

4.) STUDY POSTULATES ( ISSUES / REASONS / SOLUTIONS ) …...................4 – 8

3.1 WASE RECRUITMENT ………………………………………………………..4

3.2 WASE TRAINING ………………………………………………………………4

3.3 WASEIANS INTERACTION / COMMUNICATION POLICY & FORUM….4

3.4 WASE M.S SESSIONS…………………………………………………………5

3.5 WASE M.S EXAMS……………………………………………………………..5

3.6 WASE EMPLOYEE TREATMENT…………………………………………….6

3.7 WASE BENEFITS……………………………………………………………….

63.7.A WASE WIPRO BENEFIT

PLAN……………………………63.7.BQPLC………………………………………………………

…..63.7.CEMPLOYEE

REFERAL………………………………………63.7.DRELOCATION & TRANSFER

BENEFITS…………………63.7.EBANK LOAN

FACILITY……………………………………...63.7.FCOMPANY OFFERED

LOANS……………………………...63.8 WASE CAREER

BAND…………………………………………………………73.9 WASE ONSITE OPPURTUNITY / OOC

BANDING………………………….73.10 WASE STIPEND / SALARY

STRUCTURE…………………………83.11 WASE RETAINMENT

POLICY……………………………………….85.) TED ISSUE TEMPLATE

…………………………………………………………......9 - 11

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITYWednesday, January 31, 2007

Wednesday, January 31, 2007To,

Wipro Technologies,Bangalore, Karnataka,India,

SUBJECT: ANALYTICAL STUDY OF WASE POLICIES AND DRAFT OF PROSPECTIVE REFORMS IN WASE POLICIES.

Sir / Madame,

We would like to present you this draft, on behalf of students / employees of WASE Batch 2004 at BDC, consisting of a study conducted on WASE policies by means of random surveys; by this mean the draft also takes the initiative to suggest prospective reforms (redefinition) felt needed in the WASE policies.

Note: Refer Draft On Page Number 2.

Thanking you,

Sincerely,WASE 2004 (BDC).

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITYWednesday, January 31, 2007

ANALYTICAL STUDY OF WASE POLICIES AND DRAFT OF PROSPECTIVE REFORMS IN WASE POLICIES. In the absence of any external consultancy or internal initiative to study WASE Policies and their Organizational Impact, the WASEian have taken upon themselves to conduct this study. This study consist of analysis of Career Issues / HR Issues / Organizational Issues / Corporate Policies / Employee Perception , their impact and solutions to various organizational problems .This is a study conducted on WASE policies by means of random surveys; by this mean, the draft also takes the initiative to suggest prospective reforms (redefinition) required in the WASE policies. This document has been formally drafted, reviewed and acknowledged as collective efforts by the above mentioned WASE batches. This document has its basis in the Socio – Economic organizational analysis of WASE policies. All postulates mentioned in the draft have been postulated after careful analysis and figurative studies; Socio –Economic factors like Inflation, Cost Of Living, HR, Quality, and Cognitive sciences have been taken into consideration. The process of drafting involved a survey across all students of WASE 2004 batch. The survey involved polls / questionnaires related to various WASE issues ranging from Recruitment, Stipend, MS Sessions, MS Exams, Training, Benefits, Employee perception of similar programs in other firms.

All the postulates in this draft are neutral in all respects. It’ll be highly appreciated that the draft be respected and treated as valuable inputs to enhance WASE; as a part of never ending process of organizational evolution of Wipro. This is in no attempt to unionize WASE or to bring about some renegade’s revolution. The cause is larger; WASEians are a part of a great organization and contribute to a larger cause than WASEians themselves that’s community, the society at large and even larger the nation. WASEians are equally responsible to make all the systems they are part of perfect. This draft is an attempt to make WASE as lucrative choice by default. So as to attract the best in the industry, so that the ROI for the investment done by the organization on value creation of WASE is high.

WASE policies and structures were first drafted in 1995 and there must have been reviews, but considering the fast changing socio – economical environment it’s been widely felt by WASEian a lot more changes are due long time. We would be obliged if the postulates mentioned in the draft are reviewed and analyzed by an independent neutral panel for their validity and feasibility and required changes be introduced strictly in a timely approach .

Note: Kindly Note Figures / Statements Stated Are Only For Factual

References And Are Not For Comparisons And Should Be Taken In Best Of Spirit.

Refer Draft On Page Number 2.

Thanking you,

Sincerely,WASE 2004 (BDC).

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

WASE Recruitment:

The number of WASEian being recruited each year is growing, which is being driven by the business requirements. The Quality of Human Resource is by no means compromised for the sake of Quantity. The consequence of under quality WASE Human Resource would reflect in the future in the organization. The value of WASE needs to be maintained and the bar should be high.

A rigorous selection and screening pattern should be adopted for WASE recruitment, to ensure quality.

Transparency and Exposure to WASE policy during recruitment is required.

WASE Training:

Kindly note figures / statements stated are only for factual references and are not for comparison and should be taken in the best of spirit.

Training should be rigorous and based on skill set acquired at graduation.

Hands on should be imparted. Training should be conducted in proper institutes, unlike

institutes like I.A.S.P.L which doesn’t even have the required infrastructure.

Leadership Development Programs for WASEians. Value Sessions, to enhance and add Human, Managerial, Social

and Technical skills and values so that WASEians proactively contribute towards the society and nation at large.

WASEians Interaction / Communication Policy and Forum:

Proper and wide communication channels, well defined policies need to be established for transparent communication. It should empower WASEians like any other employee in this organization to communicate their thoughts and issues at all levels in the organization. It also provides formal channels to communicate WASE issues.

W.A.S.E community interaction sessions. Interaction between fellow and senior W.A.S.E students.

There is a need to establish a WASE open discussion forum, for WASEians.

Well defined channels of communication and policies empowering WASE committee to raise WASE issues at all level in the organization.

Regular Monthly / Bi – Monthly review sessions with WASE committee in Wipro to discuss WASE related issues.

Establish W.A.S.E get together / cultural Fest. Social and Cultural involvement.

Processes need to be established to initiate updation of policy changes in a strict time framed manner and its open and transparent communication to all in the organization.

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

WASE M.S Sessions:

An online portal for W.A.S.E with a central repository of study material/ handouts/ notes/ e-books. A discussion forum. Use of Audio-Visual lectures for sharing and revisiting recorded lectures over the portal.

There should be state of art, well stocked libraries. The equipments in the Floating learning center need

maintenance :

o Electronic Writing Boards don’t work. Writing directly on the board is more or less ineffective as people sitting beyond a certain distance aren’t able to make much out of what’s written on the board.

o Projectors are placed on the desk and leading to poor visibility due to glare.

o Markers many a times are not replaced. o The Sound Systems / Microphones needs to be maintained

and batteries replaced. Improvement in Lunch arrangements is required considering

the fact that many people are from other locations and not just from South India.

The Air – Conditioners need to be powered on during MS Session. It has been observed on many instances specially Sundays; the AC’s are not working.

Require dedicated Lab(s), with open source development tools / free-wares to deal with licensing issues for practical, hands-on.

Have Brainstorms/Discussions/Seminars now and then to increase the participation of the student. Encourage student initiatives.

WASE M.S Exams

Only one exam on any given day. Exams Only On Saturday and Sundays. Possible approaches to Exams are :

14 Sundays in a month exams.4 Saturdays before the examination day a preparatory leave.

21 Exam On Saturday.1 Exam On Sunday.Exams finished in two consecutive weeks.

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

WASE Employee Treatment:

WASEians work in the organization from Monday To Friday ( 8:30 AM to 9 :00 PM ) like any other employee , contributing in all aspects of this great organization from value , to technology , to business . WASEians undergo higher studies for their own benefits and that’s value addition. As WASEians it’s an emotional journey as it’s the first break in life for most of them, it’s a big break. It has also been observed there have been instances where WASEians have been discriminated and humiliated on issues related by Stipend / Project Opportunity / Onsite Opportunity / Employee Treatment / Sharing Concerns etc. Thus for

equal involvement and contribution in all company matters, WASEians plead for “Equal Rights, Equal Treatment”. Since after 1 year into WASE most if not all B.C.A, B-Sc (CS), B.I.T,

B.I.S. and B-Sc (Electronics) students have 16 years of education and are comparable to B-Tech / B.S as they are eligible for GRE and GATE also .They should be treated equally in Wipro. This can be determined by an Evaluation Exam or Performance Analysis over the year in WASE.

WASEians need to be treated with dignity as regular employees, undergoing MS on their own free will and that’s value addition.

WASEians should be considered equally for any “Opportunity within the Organization”.

WASEians should be considered and evaluated equally for “Project Allocation”.

WASEians should be considered and evaluated equally for “Onsite Assignments”.

WASEians should be considered equally “Billable in a Client Project”.

Equal treatment based on performance and value added by an individual to the company.

WASEians need to be considered for at least most basic benefits (QPLC, Employee Referral, and Sick Leaves).

Options for mentorship for WASEians. Instances pertaining discrimination against WASEians while

allocation of Project, Onsite Opportunities, Employee Treatment should be eliminated.

Less time in free pools.

WASE Benefits:

A benefit gives any employee another reason to believe and be a part of a cause i.e. the company. It’s a gesture of belongingness offered by the company; it’s a token of appreciation for the employee’s presence and contribution in the company. To appreciate the presence and contribution of WASEian who equally contribute towards all causes of this organization and as a token of belongingness at least the most basic benefits must be offered. A well defined Wipro Benefit Plan for WASEians. “Q.P.L.C” could be offered to the WASE students, as policies for

QPLC have been revised and QPLC return is now atleast 100%. “Employee referral scheme” has not been offered to WASEians.

Also to be noted is that “Employee Referral Policy” was stated in joining document for WASE 2004 batch.

WASEians need to be considered for “Relocation and Transfer Benefits”. As Companies Business Requirements Equally

Demands Relocation And Transfer Of WASEians As Any Other Employee.

“Bank Loans facilities for WASEians” at subsidized interest rates. For instance housing loans are available for regular Wipro employees from SBI @ 7.5 %.

WASEians could be considered for “Interest Free Loans from the Organization” up to certain limits.

Revaluation of Leave Policy for WASE is required. At least 5 Days of Sick Leaves Annually. WASEians should be

entitled to Maternity / Paternity Leaves. Policy Pertaining To “Compensatory Leaves” for working on

Official Holidays (Sunday, Religious and National Holidays) needs to be clearly defined for WASEians.

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

WASE Career BAND:

W.A.S.E career band should be flexible. It should not be restrictive for career growth, should be transparent and based on performance.

Restructuring of WASE Band by sub banding is required. Some possible solutions can be :

1 Split WASE Band Into Sub Bands Similar To The Regular Career Band Categories Like A1 / A2 Etc. Based On Job Profile and Role In The Company.

2 Adoption Of Regular Wipro Employee Career Band Policy For WASEians Also.

It should have a provision for growing up the career ladder even while in WASE band. For Instance Band B1 after 4 Years of Experience and a M.S degree from BITS Pilani, sounds unjustified as B.Tech Employees after 1 Year Of service in Wipro are absorbed in BAND B1.

Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite after MS Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.

Possible Review of Policy Pertaining Allocation of Career Band after Completion of WASE \ MS and should be transparent and based on performance.

Red or Some Alternate Color Band For WASEians After 5 Years Since Joining. Or Duration for Acquiring Red Band Be Reduced From 5 Years to 2-3 Years.

WASE Onsite Opportunity / OOC Banding :

Onsite Opportunities / Onsite Trainings / Client Interaction and Job Profiles like Requirement Gathering / Analysis, Business Development Practices are core part of learning the processes of any software professional. It enables Employees to develop a cosmopolitan outlook empowering them to deal with clients from all over the world, giving them insight about their culture, business practices. Such exposure helps employees to grow and further capture more business for the organization. And like any regular employee WASEians should also be allowed to grow

“Equal Onsite Opportunities” for W.A.S.E students. Policy pertaining to “Offshore / Onsite WASE Salary / Stipend”. Policy pertaining to “Difference in Offshore / Onsite WASE

Salary / Stipend”. Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite after MS

Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed. The Possible Solutions Are :

1

If WASEians are treated as regular full time employees , pursuing there higher studies on their own free will , just like some B.Tech people also pursue their MS are treated as regular full time employee , would be a way to get around legal complications related to VISA processing and International Labor Laws .

Policy pertaining to “Categorization of WASEians” for VISA and Legal Issues.

Category 1 : 16 Years Of Education ( I.e. B.Tech )Category 2: 15 Years Of Education + 2/3 Years Of Experience.Category 3: 15 Years Of Education + Enrollment In 2 Year M.Sc / MS / MCA Education.

Category 1, Category 2, Category 3 Are Equivalent Categories Which Are Required For OOC For Most Countries.

WASEians Fall In Category 3 + Experience Rather Than Category 2 as WASEians after a year in MS are eligible for GRE and an US MS Degree equivalent.

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

WASE Stipend / Salary Structure:

Considering factors like Inflation rate over past year which has peaked to 8.4 % and averaged at ~ 6.1 % and also the rise in cost of living primarily in Bangalore. It has been observed widely that there is a major dissatisfaction amongst WASEian regarding WASE stipends. The comparatively very low stipend being offered has lead to poor living standard of the WASE employees; also it’s hypocritical with respect to TQM and doesn’t justify Software Engineer as a good career option. A stipend should atleast be enough to provide justifiable decent lifestyle. Thus following has been widely expected:

WASEian should be offered if not equal at least a respectful, dignified and comparable stipend at least after a year into WASE

W.A.S.E stipend should be reviewed to be inline with the market. W.A.S.E stipend should be calculated and reviewed based on

comparative market analysis, considering factors like economical environment (inflation, cost of living, stipend offered by other firms for similar arrangement) . For Instance , It sounds totally unjustified to claim 5000 INR / PM in hand stipend is rightful and has been scientifically calculated based on above factors and would be able to sustain even most basic lifestyle .

For same kind of arrangement (M.S @ B.I.T.S Pilani + Work) @ C.T.S and M.B.T offer 13,500 I.N.R and 11,500 I.N.R respectively apart from benefits starting year 1.

Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility for Employee / Project Bonuses / Production Support Remuneration” needs to be clearly defined.

Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility for Allowances Distributed By Clients E.g. CISCO” needs to be clearly defined.

WASE RETAINMENT POLICY :

As WASEians it’s an emotional journey as it’s the first break in life for most of the WASEians, it’s a big break. For Four Years in this organization, WASEians contribute in all aspects of this great organization from value, to technology, to business, profits etc. But what has been observed is that WASEians with so much technological and managerial expertise look forward for a career outside Wipro after four year, which is well demonstrated by attrition rate amongst WASEians in 5th Year, is touching as high as ~90 %. This brain drain has never been addressed. Thus following widely expected considering factors like (4 Years Wipro Work Experience + MS @ BITS Pilani):

Kindly note figures / statements stated are only for factual references and are not for comparison and should be taken in the best of spirit.

Possible review of policy pertaining to allocation of “Career Band after Completion of WASE \ MS”.

Possible review of policy pertaining to “Salary Packages After Completion of WASE \ MS” is required .

Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite After MS Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.

W.A.S.E Reforms 2005TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY

TED ISSUES

N ISSUESV: Valid / R : Review / I : Implement

WASE RECRUITMENT

The number of WASEian being recruited each year is growing, which is being driven by the business requirement. The Quality of Human Resource shouldn’t be compromised for the sake of Quantity. The consequence of under quality WASE Human Resource would reflect in the future in the organization. The value of WASE needs to be maintained and the bar should be high. Quality cannot be compromised for Quantity.

1 A rigorous selection and screening pattern should

be adopted for WASE recruitment, to ensure quality.

2

Transparency and Exposure to WASE policy during recruitment is required.

WASE EMPLOYEE TREATMENTWASEians work in the organization from Monday To Friday (8:30 AM to 9:00 PM) like any other employee, contributing in all aspects of this great organization from value , to technology , to business . WASEians undergo higher studies for their own benefits and that’s value addition. As WASEians it’s an emotional journey as it’s the first break in life for most of the WASEians , it’s a big break . Thus for equal involvement and contribution in all company matters, WASEians plead for “Equal Rights, Equal Treatment”.

It has also been observed there have been instances where WASEians have been discriminated and humiliated on issues related by Stipend / Project Opportunity / Onsite Opportunity / Employee Treatment

Issues.

3

Since after 1 year into WASE most if not all B.C.A, B-Sc (CS), B.I.T, B.I.S, and B-Sc (Electronics) students have 16 years of education and are comparable to B-Tech / B.S as they are eligible for GRE and GATE also .They need to be treated equally in Wipro. This can be determined by an Evaluation Exam or Performance Analysis over the year in WASE.

4

WASEians should be considered equally for any “Opportunity Within The Organization”.

5

Equal treatment based on performance and value added by an individual to the company.

6WASEians should be considered equally “Billable In A Client Project”.

7

WASEians should be considered and evaluated equally for “Project Allocation”.

8

WASEians should be considered and evaluated equally for “Onsite Assignments”.

9

WASEians need to be treated with dignity as regular employees, undergoing MS on their own free will and that’s value addition.

10

Instances pertaining discrimination against WASEians while allocation of Project, Onsite Opportunities, Employee Treatment should be

eliminated.

WASE SALARY / STIPEND STRUCTUREConsidering factors like Inflation rate over past year which has peaked to 8.4 % and averaged at ~ 6.1 % and also the rise in cost of living primarily in Bangalore. It has been observed widely that there is a major dissatisfaction amongst WASEian regarding WASE stipends. The comparatively very low stipend being offered has lead to poor living standard of the WASE employees . A stipend should at least be enough to provide justifiable decent lifestyle.

It sounds totally unjustified to claim 5000 INR / PM in hand stipend is rightful and has been scientifically calculated based on above factors and would be able to sustain even most basic lifestyle .

11

WASEian should be offered if not equal at least a respectful, dignified and comparable stipend at least after a year into WASE . . .

12

W.A.S.E stipend should be calculated and reviewed based on comparative market analysis, considering factors like

economical environment ( inflation , cost of living , stipend offered by other firms for similar arrangement ) .

13

W.A.S.E stipend should be reviewed to be inline with the market.

14

Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility For Employee / Project Bonuses / Production Support Remuneration” needs to be clearly defined.

15

Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility For Allowances Distributed By Clients E.g. CISCO” needs to be clearly defined.

WASE CAREER BAND

W.A.S.E career band should be flexible. It should not be restrictive for career growth, should be transparent and based on performance. It should have a provision for growing up the career ladder even while in WASE band. For Instance Band B1 after 4 Years Of Experience and A M.S degree from BITS Pilani , sounds unjustified as B.Tech Employees after 1 Year Of service in Wipro are absorbed in BAND B1 .

Solution 1 : Split WASE Band Into Sub Bands Similar To The Regular Career Band Categories Like A1 / A2

Etc. Based On Job Profile and Role In The Company .

Solution 2 :Adoption Of Regular Wipro Employee Career Band Policy For WASEians Also .

16

Restructuring Of WASE Band by sub banding ( Refer Solution 1 and 2 above )

17

Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite After MS Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.

18

Possible Review Of Policy Pertaining Allocation Of Career Band after Completion of WASE \ MS and should be transparent and based on performance.

19

Red Or Some Alternate Color Band For WASEians After 5 Years Since Joining. Or Duration For Acquiring Red Band Be Reduced From 5 Years To 2-3 Years .

WASE BENEFITS

A benefit gives any employee another reason to believe and be a part of a cause i.e. the company. It’s a gesture of belongingness offered by the company; it’s a token of appreciation for the employee’s presence and contribution in the company. To appreciate the presence and contribution of WASEian who equally contribute towards all causes of this organization and as a token of belongingness at least the most basic benefits must be offered.

20

A well defined Wipro Benefit Plan for WASEians.

21

Employee Referral Scheme can be offered .

22

Q.P.L.C can be offered to the WASE students, as they contribute towards the performance and output of the firm.

23

Revaluation Of Leave Policy For WASE.

24

At least 5 Days Of Sick Leaves Annually.

25

WASEians should be entitled to Maternity / Paternity Leaves.

26

Bank Loans facilities for WASEians at subsidized interest rates.

27

Interest Free Loans form the company up to certain limits.

28

WASEians Can Be Considered For Relocation And Transfer Benefits.

29

Policy Pertaining To “Compensatory Leaves” for working on Official Holidays (Sunday, Religious And National Holidays) needs to be clearly defined for WASEians.

WASE Onsite Opportunity / OOC Banding Onsite Opportunities / Onsite Trainings / Client Interaction And Job Profiles Like Requirement Gathering / Analysis, Business Development Practices are core part of learning the processes of any software professional. It enables Employees to develop a cosmopolitan outlook empowering them to deal with clients from all over the world, giving them insight about their culture, business practices. Such exposure helps employees to grow and further capture more business for the organization. And like any regular employee WASEians should also be allowed to grow. The Possible Solutions Are :

If WASEians are treated as regular full time employees , pursuing there higher studies on their own free will , just like some B.Tech people also pursue their MS are treated as regular full time employee , would be a way to get around legal

complications related to VISA processing and International Labor Laws .

Its based on following Categorization :

Category 1 : 16 Years Of Education ( I.e. B.Tech )Category 2 : 15 Years Of Education + 2/3 Years Of Experience .Category 3 : 15 Years Of Education + Enrollment In 2 Year M.Sc / MS / MCA Education .

Category 1 , Category 2 , Category 3 Are Equivalent Categories Which Are Required For OOC For Most Countries .

WASEians Fall In Category 3 + Experience Rather Than Category 2 as WASEians after a year in MS are eligible for GRE and an US MS Degree equivalent.

30

“Equal Onsite Opportunities” for W.A.S.E students.

31

Policy pertaining to “Offshore / Onsite WASE Salary / Stipend” .

32

Policy pertaining to “Difference In Offshore / Onsite WASE Salary / Stipend”.

33

Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite After MS Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.

WASE RETAINMENT POLICYAs WASEians it’s an emotional journey as it’s the first break in life for most of the WASEians, it’s a big break. For Four Years in this organization, WASEians contribute in all aspects of this great organization from value, to technology, to business, profits etc. But what have been observed is that WASEians with so much technological and managerial expertise look forward for a career outside Wipro after four year , which is well demonstrated by attrition rate amongst WASEians in 5th Year is touching as high as ~80% - 90% . This brain drain has never been addressed. Thus following widely expected considering factors Like ( 4 Years Wipro Work Experience + MS @ BITS Pilani ) :

34

Possible review of policy pertaining to allocation of “Career Band after Completion of WASE \ MS”.

35

Possible review of policy pertaining to “Salary Packages After Completion of WASE \ MS” is required .

36

Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite After MS Completion i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.

BITS Collaborative Program Syllabus Site:

http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/degrees/collab/body_mssewmp.html

Off-Campus Work-Integrated Learning ProgrammesBirla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

M.S. Software Engineering (Wipro, MBT, Patni) 

Type of Input & Duration :

Sponsored employees (with adequate work experience) with a B.Sc. Degree or its equivalent with adequate preparation in Mathematics & Physics, for an Eight Semester programme

Special Feature:

This is a specially designed programme for Human Resource Development of employees of Wipro Technologies, Bangalore; Mahindra British Telecom, Pune and Patni Computer Systems Ltd., Mumbai.

Year

First Semester U Second Semester U

   I

SE** ZC211SE** ZC221SE** ZC241SE** ZC261

Mathematics IStructured ProgrammingPrinciples of ManagementDigital Electronics &  Microprocessors

3333

SE** ZC212SE** ZC222SE** ZC213SE** ZC252 

Mathematics IIAdvanced Programming TechniquesProbability & StatisticsDiscrete Structures for Computer Science

3 333

Total 12

Total 12

   II

SE** ZC413SE** ZC415SE** ZC461SE** ZC432

Computer Organization & ArchitectureData Structures & AlgorithmsSoftware EngineeringObject Oriented Programming

3333

SE** ZC421SE** ZC362 SE** ZC322SE** ZC422

Computer NetworksProgramming Languages & Compiler ConstructionDatabase Management SystemsOperating Systems

3 333

Total 12

Total 12

   III

SE** ZG659SE** ZG512SE** ZG511SE** ZC462

Technical CommunicationObject Oriented Analysis & DesignDesign & Analysis of AlgorithmsNetwork Programming

4453

SE** ZG651SE** ZG661SE** ZC473SE** ZC451

Software ArchitecturesSoftware Quality ManagementMultimedia ComputingInternetworking Technologies

5433

Total 16

Total 15

  IV

SE** ZG514SE** ZG552SE** ZG622SE** ZG513

Data WarehousingSoftware Testing MethodologiesSoftware Project ManagementNetwork Security

5444

SE** ZG629T

Dissertation 

20

Total 17

Total 20

Note 1: This is the currently operative pattern as approved by the Senate-appointed committee, subject to change if the situation warrants.

Note 2: For the course number in the above chart the symbol ** can be substituted by WP for Wipro, MB for MBT and PC for Patni.

[DLP Home]  [Introduction] [Admission Notification] [BITS Virtual University] [Educational Process]  [Distance Learning Programmes][Collaborative Programmes]  [[Fees]  [Contacts]  [Online Query]  [News] [BITS Home] 

BITS Collaborative Program Policies:

http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/eduprocess/eduprocess.html

Educational Process

1. Educational Process

2. The Role of a Mentor

3. Evaluation Methodology

4. Some Stipulations

5. Operating Definitions of Certain Key Terms

Educational Process

Considering that the Off-Campus distance learning and collaborative degrees are work-integrated learning programmes, it is essential that the applicant is engaged in work in the relevant professional areas. The final offer of admission for such programmes would be based on the applicant's educational background, academic achievements, work profile, relevant work experience, profile of the employing organization and proposed mentor's profile.

The education in the off-campus distance learning and collaborative programmes is characterized by person-centered approach where the rigour and standard are maintained on par with Institute's system of education on-campus. These programmes judiciously combine the flexibility and ingenuity of the off-campus educational system with all the regular features of the on campus education system. Also, the learning and evaluation process draws upon the successful and established methodologies followed by the Institute.The work learning environment of a student under the Off-campus Distance Learning and Collaborative programmes consist of two broad-based facets:- Academic Environment created by Pilani-based and off-campus centre based Instructors who are BITS faculty drawn from different disciplines;

- Student's own Work Environment from which assignments, projects, seminars etc., may emerge to integrate theory and practice. A (locally-based) Mentor imparts structured guidance and conducts certain evaluation components (see Role of Mentor' below);Central to the educational philosophy of the Institute being the dialectical link between theory and practice, the student's own work environment provides an ideal ground where theory could be meaningfully combined with practice through Assignments, Case Studies, Laboratory-Oriented Projects, Work Experience, Inservice Training, Internship, Thesis-Seminar and Dissertation. These evaluation components and courses search for evidence of self-study, time planning, conceptual understanding and application of the concepts in a real-life situation, self-reliant articulation, enthusiasm for, awareness of and participation in new pedagogy. One of the distinctive features of this system is the complete formalization of pursuit of education at the work-learning environment. An organization creates a work learning environment by providing academic sponsorship for the candidates as well as infrastructural facilities such as place for conducting formal classes/mentor interactions/examination apart from library, computer and laboratory access. The work learning environment form a strict requirement in order to infuse a strong component of teacher-student contact through course instructors as well as Mentor (a senior officer of the student's own organization). Thus work-learning environment is a very important component of the person-centered learning process. There is in the design, a clear arrangement of periodic personal discussion in the work-learning environment with the students so that their progress is directly monitored by planned interaction. Further, the students at the work-learning environment receive help from mentors. Throughout the student's learning process, which is conducted in his own work place, through systematic self-study, and self-learning process, the student remains continually in contact with the course

instructors for any clarifications. Thus the operation is an imaginative combination of the contact hours and tutoring of the on-campus system with the student-centered self-study feature of the off-campus system and an organizational and pedagogic commitment of the collaborating organizations. The student is at once, a full- time student as well as full-time employee.

For each course offered by the Institute, there would be an Instructor, who is a BITS faculty, drawn from the relevant discipline who is charged with the responsibility of the conduct of that course. This will be in terms of preparing question papers, evaluation of answer papers and answering student's queries apart from preparing instruction manuals, question bank, supplementary notes, etc. wherever required in order to strengthen the course.

For each course, there will be a handout, which will spell out the plan of study and evaluation scheme, prescribed text book / suggested reference books apart from other details. The evaluation schedule is also announced in the beginning of the semester itself. All details pertaining to the operation of the course including grading procedures are shared with the students through this document. It is the responsibility of each student to acquire textbooks and other reference materials recommended for each course in the course handout.

The Role of a Mentor

A Mentor is a senior officer of the student-employee who has been nominated by his organization or is a person in a senior position willing to undertake and discharge the academic responsibilities on his own volition. It is expected of the Mentor to possess adequate qualifications to guide the student and the Mentor has to be approved by the Distance Learning Programmes Division before admission is finalized. Typically for the B.S. programmes mentor is expected to have minimum educational qualification of the level of Integrated First Degree of BITS or its equivalent such as B.E./BITS B.S. /B.Tech./M.Sc./A.M.I.E. etc. and for the M.S./M.Phil. Programmes of the level of Higher Degree of BITS or its equivalent such as M.E./M.S./ M.Tech./M.Phil./M.D. etc. However, for the M.S. / M.Phil. Programmes, senior professionals holding a First Degree of BITS or its equivalent such as B.E. / BTech. / MSc. / MBA / M.C.A / M.B.B.S etc. and having a minimum of ten years of relevant work experience may also be proposed as mentors. Preference will be given to applicants having a suitable mentor from the same employing organization. In case Mentor is not chosen from the same employing organization as that of the applicant, it is mandatory for the applicant to give adequate

justification in a separate document which must be duly forwarded by the applicant's Employer. The Mentors would assist the course instructors in terms of the following: - Achieving the set of academic objectives enunciated by the instructors;

- Verifying if a student is indeed sticking to the plan of study given in the handout;

- Monitoring involvement of the student in self-study, time planning, understanding of concepts and their use, developing self-reliant articulation, awareness of and enthusiasm for new pedagogy, responsibility to meet deadlines, developing familiarity with the library, etc.

- Conducting certain evaluation components like Seminar, Assignment, Project, Case Study, etc.

Evaluation Methodology

Evaluation for a given course is internal and continuous and has the following features: - Assignments, Projects, Case-studies, spread over a semester for making the course relevant and meaningful to the work learning environment of the students;

- Written examinations - one at the mid-semester point and another comprehensive exam at the end of semester. These examinations are conducted at specified off-campus centers of BITS in a centralized manner under the supervision of BITS faculty; (Presently for the Distance Learning Programmes, BITS exam centers are located at Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hosur, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagda, Pilani and Dubai).- For the exam centre at Dubai, in addition to the semester fees, there will be an exam centre fees of 1000 UAE Dirhams or equivalent per semester to be paid at the time of appearing in Mid-semester examinations at Dubai Centre for that semester.

- Strict adherence to the evaluation schedule as announced through the course handout at the start of the semester;

- The Institute follows continuous system of internal evaluation and letter grades A, B, C, D, E carrying grade points 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 respectively are awarded for all courses other than Dissertation /

Thesis-Seminar for which only non-letter grades namely EXCELLENT, GOOD, FAIR, POOR are awarded. If a student does not offer adequate opportunity for evaluation in a course, reports such as NC (Not cleared) may be awarded.

- The final grading in a course is done by tabulating in descending order (equivalently a histogram) the total marks of all students in a particular course. The performance of the course will be analysed in terms of average, highest and lowest marks and dividing lines between various clusters. Gaps between clusters and the nature of clusters will guide drawing the dividing lines between various grades. In a normal class of large size, the C-band will usually include the average mark. This is not a hard and fast rule and exceptions may arise in cases of small classes or a skewed histogram etc.

- The Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) on a 10 Scale basis is used to describe the overall performance of a student in all courses for which LETTER GRADES are awarded.U1G1+U2G2+U3G3+...............+UnGnCGPA = ----------------------------------------U1+U2+U3+.........+UnWhere U1, U2, U3, .. Un denote units associated with the courses taken by the student and G1, G2,G3,...Gn denote grade points of the letter grades awarded in the respective courses. Non-Letter grades do not go into computation of CGPA.- In the case of Integrated First Degree programmes the final division for the degree is decided on the basis of CGPA and there are three classifications, namely Distinction (CGPA 9.00 or more), First Division (CGPA 7.00 or more but less than 9.00) and Second Division (CGPA 4.50 or more but less than 7.00). However, no division will be awarded in diploma, higher degrees and Ph.D. programmes.

- Subject to fulfilling the Academic Regulations of the Institute, the student will be issued at the end of each semester a grade sheet and at the end of the programme a Transcript and Provisional Certificate followed by the Final Degree Certificate. The minimum academic requirements for the M.S. programme stipulate that a student obtains a CGPA of 5.50 and no E grade in any course. Similarly for the B.S. programmes, student should obtain a CGPA of 4.50 and no E grade in any course. Students who fail to meet the minimum academic requirements or put under the purview of Academic Monitoring Board (AMB), which monitors their programmes, and give guidance so that they are properly rehabilitated at the earliest.

- The Institute’s Academic Regulations must be consulted for additional details.

Some Stipulations

- While the students who are admitted to on-campus degree programmes may be permitted to transfer to off-campus degree programmes, the reverse is normally not possible since the admission modalities for the two degrees are not the same. However, all off-campus degrees are equivalent to the corresponding degree of on-campus and for admissions to the Institute for any higher degree programmes the off-campus degrees will not be distinguished from on-campus degrees.

- In any examination, as far as possible, the direct interactive process of the evaluation would be made at a place nearest the working place of the candidates. Wherever there is not adequate number of candidates, the Institute will be free to demand that all candidates come to Campus or other Off-Campus centers for this purpose.

- A student who is admitted to the Institute because of sponsoring from an organization will cease to be a student if he discontinues employment from the organization. However, his case will be entertained without prejudice if the new organization in which he is employed agrees to sponsor him for the degree. However, if the person becomes unemployed he may not be continued because of the requirement of work learning environment for the degree, which may no longer, be available to the student.

- Any student admitted to a programme may be allowed to transfer to another programme provided he is eligible for the same and is supported by his work environment and sponsorship of his employer.

- Since every student admitted to off-campus degree programme is treated as a full-time student and a full time employee, it is essential that such a student be not enrolled for any degree or diploma programme, part-time or otherwise, in any other university. If it is found that a student is admitted/registered in some other university for degree programme, then his admission / registration will be cancelled.

Operating Definitions of Certain Key Terms

- A course is a component of knowledge, which serves as the irreducible minimum building block in the curriculum or syllabus.

- A programme of studies is a set of courses constituting the requirements of a degree.

- A regular student is one who is enrolled for a degree.

- A collaborating organization is an organization that helps the Institute in setting up the necessary facilities and in the running of classes and laboratories for all students. Such an organization may simultaneously be also a sponsoring organization.

- A sponsoring organization is an organization, which fulfills one or more of the following features:

a. The organization is the employer of the student and pays fully / partly the fees/dues of the student and also provides facilities required for the learning process.

b. The organization is an employer of the student but does not pay the fees/dues of the student. Nonetheless the organization agrees to encourage and actively participate in the special nature of the educational process for the mutual benefit of the organization and the employee.

- An associate student is one who is allowed to register in any of the courses offered in each semester with an ultimate goal of obtaining a diploma/degree or without any such ambition. The treatment of these students will be different from that of the casual students in that these students will be registered on credit and not on audit basis and may be admitted for a degree or a diploma, if situation so warrants. Further, admission procedure and the fee structure may also differ in contrast to the casual students. Presently the Institute considers only sponsored candidates from structured collaborative programmes for Admission as Associate Student.

Duration

This may vary from programme to programme depending upon the input qualification, experience requirements, nature as well as the need of the collaborating organizations including the viability and feasibility of course offerings. The Semester wise pattern given in the following pages indicate the currently operational details for various programmes which may be varied whenever situation warrants.

Wipro WASE Career Website

http://careers.wipro.com/wase/

Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE) program is primarily designed to suit the manpower development needs of Wipro Technologies. This program is intended to prepare some of the best B Sc., BCA and BCM students for the future applications development environment, by giving them right kind of training. Also, this program aims to equip students with the platform skills and professional certifications necessary to applying thought in Wipro, along with instilling the need for a quality process.

Selection Process

The WASE program is open only (2006 Batch) for fresh science (B.Sc.) graduates who have opted for Computer science, Electronics, Mathematics or Information Technology (IT) as subjects and BCA/BCM graduates. The brightest students with at least 60% aggregate in there graduation, Plus 2 and 10th Examinations and with Mathematics as a subject in their +2 /PUC can eligible to apply for this four-year program.

The selection process is multi-level with standard aptitude test, Communication & Programming Skills test and personal interview. The aptitude test is similar to the GRE and GMAT format. Candidates are filtered after each level.

WASE recruitment is done through both Campus & off-Campus process. Campus process is restricted to selected colleges of Students of only these colleges go through the selection process and are recruited in their third year of graduation. In Off-campus process students are intimated through Advertisement in all leading National English dailies across all metros of the country.

All selected candidates have to student service agreement  with Wipro for four years. The only pre-condition for students under WASE program is that they have to be in Wipro to complete the WASE MS degree. But, there is no condition that they should stick on to the company once they finish their course.

  Who is eligible to apply?

BSC (Computer Science/IT/ Electronics/ Mathematics/IT stream only) or BCAWith consistent academic record of at-least 60% aggregate from their 10th till their Graduation.Must have Math as one of the subject in +2/PUC.

Details on the selection process: The selection will be conducted in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Delhi and Pune.Selected candidates are required to complete the 4 year degree program and sign a service agreement for the program duration.

WASE History:- The first WASE batch was started in 1995. Since then Wipro has been recruiting B.Sc / BCA / BCM graduates for WASE.

Scholarship / Stipend

The company also provides an attractive scholarship / stipend for the selected WASE students which would take care of their necessary expenses in Bangalore or in other Wipro development centers in India. Apart from this the full fees of four-year MS program is borne by Wipro.

Program structure

As part of the WASE program, every student registers for an 8 semester MS program with Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani (Rajasthan, India). In the first seven semesters, WASE students are doing their course work and the dissertation in the last semester.

During their MS Program with BITS Pilani, the WASE students are placed in the various Business domains. Here they will participate in the live projects as the regular employees do.

The schedule and plan will be intimated to the WASE students from time to time. The faculty from the best Engineering Colleges and IT Industries in the locality are selected through a very systematic and stringent Faculty evaluation process, for conducting the contact classes.

WASE MS program is a highly structured program of 16 weeks contact classes and classes are being conducted on every Saturday in Wipro office. All classes are held at Wipro's development Centers at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and Gurgoan.

Teaching Methodology

The teaching is basically Instructor Led Training (ILT) and in some cases it is through Video Conferencing.

There will be four courses per semester and classes are conducted as per the 'course plan' prepared by the Faculty. The emphasis is given on business integration of these courses and brining more focus on collaborative curriculum. All the classrooms in our Learning center are equipped with flat monitor based desktops, a smart board and a LCD. These classrooms acoustically designed so that a student in remote corner can hear clearly.

Faculty use presentations for all sessions. He / She can also use white board/smart board in case of illustrations.

Program schedule

Normal classroom sessions will be held between 9:00am to 6:00pm on every Saturday. However, there will be some sessions that may go on beyond 06:00pm and may be started before 08.30am. These sessions will be shown in the week plan.

If required the Faculty may call the students to attend his /her class on some other day including Sunday. But this will be informed in advance. Or he/ she will seek the convenience of the students before scheduling the class.

Orientation Training Program

All WASE students will undergo a strategically planned and scheduled Orientation Training Program (Foundation Readiness Program for 28 days and Project Readiness Program for 35 days, together 12 weeks training). This is a mandatory Training program for all WASE students. This Training may be a Comprehensive Training or an intensive Certification Oriented Training Program. The duration is typically ranges from 35 to 45 days. This training is conducted before the WASE students are getting registered for the MS Program with BITS Pilani and placed in their respective Vertical as well. 

Each WASE student part of the Orientation Training Program has to pass the courses with a minimum cut-off percentage prescribed by Talent Transformation from time to time. A retest is given to the student to improve his/her performance.

WASE History

The first WASE batch was started in 1995. Since then Wipro has been recruiting B.Sc / BCA / BCM graduates for WASE.

Wipro Collaborative Program Website

http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/e_wase_introduction.htm

WASE Introduction

Selection Process..

Scholarship..

Program Structure...

Teaching Methodology...

Schedule...

Code of Conduct...

Orientation Training...

WASE Strength...1

WASE

WASE (Wipro Academy of Software Excellence) is a pioneering effort of Wipro Technologies, in preparing some of the best B.Sc, BCA and BCM graduates to face the challenges presented in the everchanging world of Information Technology, by giving them right kind of training.

Apart from equipping the students with the necessary platform skills, behavioral skills and providing the live project exposure, this program provides an opportunity to pursue an 8-semester (four year) off-campus Collaborative MS Program from Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani (Rajasthan, India).

Selection Process 

The WASE program is open only for fresh science (B.Sc.) graduates who have opted for Computer science, Electronics, Mathematics subjects and BCA/BCM graduates. The brightest students with at least 65% aggregate and with Mathematics as a subject in their +2 /PUC can eligible to apply for this four-year program. Short listing and selection is strictly on merit.

The selection process is multi-level with standard aptitude test, group discussion and personal interview. The aptitude test is similar to the GRE and GMAT format. Candidates are filtered after each level.

Advertisement is published in all leading National English dailies across all metros of the country. On an average there will be 100 applications for each seat. Candidates are filtered after each level of tests. Finally, the candidates with all-round capabilities will be selected and informed. 

All selected candidates have to sign a bond with Wipro for four years. This is the only pre-condition for WASE candidates, under this they have to be in Wipro to complete the WASE MS programme. But, there is no condition that they should stick on to the company once they finish their course.

Scholarship / Stipend  

The company also provides an attractive scholarship for the selected WASE candidates, which would take care of their necessary expenses in their location of MS Program (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Gurgoan). Apart from this the full fees of four-year MS program is borne by Wipro.

Program Structure  

As part of the WASE program, every selected candidates registers for an 8-semester MS program with BITS Pilani (Rajasthan). In the first seven semesters, WASE students are doing their course work and the dissertation in the last semester.  

During their MS Program with BITS Pilani, the WASE students are placed in the various Business domains. Here they will participate in the live projects as the regular employees do. 

The schedule and plan will be intimated to the WASE students from time to time. The faculty from the local Engineering Colleges and IT Industries are selected through a very systematic and stringent Faculty evaluation process, for conducting the WASE contact classes.  

WASE MS program is a highly structured program of 16 weeks contact classes (two hours each), and classes are being conducted on every Saturday. All classes are held at Wipro's development Centers at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Gurgoan.

Teaching Methodology  

The teaching is basically Instructor Led Training (ILT) and in some cases it is through the Virtual classrooms (Video Conferencing) in order to reach the Wipro employees outside Bangalore.  

There will be four courses per semester and classes are conducted as per the 'course plan' prepared by the Faculty in accordance with the syllabus prescribed by BITS Pilani. The emphasis is given on business integration of these courses and bring more focus on collaborative curriculum. 

All the classrooms in our Learning Center are equipped with flat monitor based desktops, a smart board and a LCD. These classrooms acoustically designed so that a student in remote corner can hear clearly.  

Faculty use presentations for all sessions. He / She can also use white board/smart board / Magnetic board/OHP in case of illustrations.

Program Schedule  

Normal classroom sessions will be held between 9:00am to 6:00pm on every Saturday. However, there will be some sessions that may go on beyond 06:00pm and may be started before 08.30am. These sessions will be shown in the week plan.  

If required the Faculty may call the students to attend his /her class on some other day including Sunday. But this will be informed well in advance. He/ she will seek the convenience of the students before scheduling the class.

Code of Conduct

Students have to complete the assignments and submit the same on time. The faculty reserves the right of not accepting late work.

WASE students should be punctual to the classes and maintain decorum in all the classes and during examinations. The Consultant, Educational Initiatives may, from time to time, call the WASE students to meet him for discussions, counseling and collecting Clearance letter, Experience letter and Recommendation letter. The WASE student has to make himself / herself free and meet the Consultant at his place during the specified time.  

WASE student shall not involve directly or indirectly in cheating, falsifying, and defaming the reputation of the Faculty or other individuals who have been working in this novel Initiative.  

On any event of violation of the code of conduct by the WASE student, the decision of the Principal Consultant, Educational Initiatives shall be final. 

Dropping out of the WASE program will necessitate reimbursement of training fees by the WASE student to the company on a pro-rata basis, the details of which are available in the bond, signed by the candidate prior to joining the WASE program.  

Orientation Training Program  

All WASE students will undergo a strategically planned and scheduled Orientation Training Program (Foundation Readiness Program for 28 days and Project Readiness Program for 35 days, together 12 weeks training). This is a mandatory Training program for all WASE students. This Training may be a Comprehensive Training or an intensive Certification Oriented Training Program. The duration is typically ranges from 35 to 45 days.  

Instructors for this training are exclusively from the Talent Transformation and if needed for specific training we outsource the external Faculty.  

This training is conducted before the WASE students are getting registered for the MS Program with BITS Pilani and placed in their respective Vertical as well. 

Each WASE student part of the Orientation Training Program has to pass the courses with a minimum cut-off percentage* prescribed by Talent Transformation from time to time. A retest is given to the student to improve his/her performance. If the student has failed to score prescribed percentage in the retests, then the student will be asked to quit the program. 

If the Orientation Training Program is tagged to Certifications, then the WASE student has to complete the specified Certificate exam within the given time frame and score the requisite percentage. Wipro Technologies will bear the cost of the certification under its novel initiative 'U Pass V Pay'.

WASE Strength 

The first WASE batch was started in 1995. Since then Wipro has been recruiting B.Sc / BCA / BCM graduates for WASE. The following Table depicts the number of recruits since 1995.

*For 2004-05, it is 80% for both FRP and PRP      

BDC - Bangalore Development CenterCDC- Chennai Development CenterHDC- Hyderabad Development CenterPDC- Pune Development Center GDC - Gurgaon Development Center  

Wipro Technologies WASE Policies Website

http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/e_wase_policy_student.htm

Policy Guidelines for WASE Students

Classes...

Attendance...

Payment of Fees...

Leave...

Examinations...

Scholarship...

Confirmations...

Certificates /Letter...

Certification Examination...         

Meeting...  

Discipline...

Personal Folders...

Contact Classes1. First semester starts from (2004-05) 9th October 2004.2. Presently, all contact classes are conducted at Wipro Electronics

City office in Bangalore, Madhapur office in Hyderabad,

Sholinganallur office in Chennai, Hingewadi in Pune and Gurgoan Wipro Office.

3. Buses are arranged for the WASE contact classes at the respective location to pick up and drop WASE students. In this connection, contact WASE coordinators: [email protected] at Bangalore, [email protected] at Hyderabad and [email protected] at Chennai and [email protected] at Pune and [email protected] at Gurgoan.

4. All WASE students should communicate to their WASE coordinators the details of their location of work, extension, domain / account, names of PM and TM and other relevant information for office purpose, immediately after reporting into verticals.

5. Should be punctual for every class.6. Should maintain decorum in the class.7. Dress up smart casuals while coming to the classes.8. Give feedback on the classes and the Faculty, honestly and

critically, whenever asked. This is mandatory. 9. Should submit assignments to the Faculty on time.10. WASE students are expected to come prepared for the contact

classes and discuss with Faculty for all doubts and queries.

 Attendance 1. Attendance is COMPULSORY. Attendance of 75% is a pre-requisite to

take the exams. The WASE students who have less than 75% of attendance are not allowed for the exams.

2. Students falling short of attendance even in one subject are not eligible to write exams for the current semester.

3. Students can not abstain for TWO consecutive semesters. Consequence - deletion from BITS rolls. And hence from the WASE program.

4. Remaining absent for the classes, without the prior approval / permission from the concerned Authority, will be treated as indiscipline. 

Payment of Fees  1. Full fees for all 8-semesters is borne by Wipro.2. In case of backlogs / Re-registration course, the WASE student has

to pay the required amount of fees to BITS Pilani.3. Dropouts from the course are subjected to the conditions laid down

in the service agreement (Bond executed during the time of recruitment)

4. No reimbursements for WASEians for any expenses incurred by them during the MS program. 

Examinations1. There are TWO examinations for each semester: Mid semester

exam and End Semester exam. The mid semester Exam carries 40% weightage while the End semester Exam carries 60% weightage.

2. Mid semester Exam is a closed book exam and End semester (Comprehensive - covers all topics) Exam is Open book exam.

3. Both the Mid semester and End semester examinations are conducted on Weekends only.

4. All exams and dissertation evaluations (Viva-Voce) are held at respective locations (BDC - Bangalore, CDC - Chennai, HDC - Hyderabad, PDC - Pune, and GDC - Gurgoan) only.

5. Provision for make up exams only on medical exigencies / onsite assignment.

6. Make up exam request to be enclosed with medical certificate / letter from TM / BUH as required and submit the same to the Principal Consultant, Educational Initiatives.

7. For each course only one Make up exam (for both mid and end semesters) will be scheduled.

8. Each WASE student has to show a very good overall performance by securing highest CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point average) in the program.

9. Each course is graded on the basis of relative grading which lead to, A, B, C, D and E grades.

10. You are expected to maintain CGPA at 5.5 to get MS degree from BITS Pilani

11. Re-registration in case of `E’ grade or CGPA less than 5.5 (as per BITS), fee will be borne by student.

12. All WASE students who have secured 'E' grade or CGPA less that 5.5 are called for counseling (conducted only for Low performers at the end of the semester, schedule will be communicated).

13. Each Student has to attend the counseling meeting, at the specified venue and time, along with his/her PM and TED manager, without fail.

14. A WASE Student will be asked to quit the organization, under the following conditions:

15. Any time he/she secures TWO “E” Grades during the WASE Program. Some of the scenarios are as follows: 

16. It can be in the same semester or across two semesters.b) It can be in the same subject (E in Retest also) or across two subjects.

17. When he/she secures ONE 'E' grade during the WASE Program and gets Improvement required (“IR”) Appraisal rating by his/her Supervisor /Manager in the Project.

Leave1. Each WASE student will get a maximum of 15 days leave during the

Academic cycle starting from 1st January and ending with the 31st

December. No carry forward of leave. 2. For WASEians working days are from Monday to Saturday, therefore

leave request should be made through TEDweb and update the same in the manual System.

3. Availing leave beyond 15 days is treated as Loss-Of-Scholarship(LOS).

4. For Personal Marriage, a maximum of 25 days of leave will be granted, which includes permissable 15 days leave. The additional 10 days are treated as LOS.

Scholarship1. WASE coordinator sends in the details of scholarship of each WASE

student to the Payroll department every month and payroll is done accordingly.

2. Current Scholarship scheme is as shown in the following Table.

 Year Scholarship Amount (in INR)

First 3 Months

5700.00

4th - 12th Months

6200.00

Second 7450.00Third  9200.00Fourth 15,500.00

Confirmations1. All WASEians will be absorbed into the organization (subject to the

organizational policy) as confirmed employees after successful completion of their MS program with BITS Pilani.

2. Confirmation is withheld in case the bond period is not over. 3. Wipro's WASE Coordinator will send a list of all WASEians, who have

successfully completed their MS program to the line TED Managers. 4. The line TED managers will send their inputs/feedback on the WASE

students working in their account, to the WASE coordinator.5. WASE Coordinator will consolidate the inputs and prepares the final

list of confirmations and send the same to the group TED manager.

6. Group TED Manager will take care of SAP updation.

 Certificates /Letters  

1. WASE student would need the Clearance Certificate, Experience certificate, Address Proof Certificate, Provisional Degree Certificate (PDC), Convocation Certificate and Education certificate during or after their four year MS program.

2. The Clearance Certificate, Experience certificate, Provisional Degree Certificate, and Convocation certificates are issued by the Consultant, Educational Initiatives. But Address proof certificate will be issued by the TED Manager.

A. Clearance Certificate :

1. When a WASE / MS programs student is going onsite (with approval from his/her TM and Consultant, Educational Initiatives), can request for the Clearance Certificate with the necessary information, asked by the Wipro-BITS Collaborative Initiatives coordinators.

2. Wipro WASE Coordinator has to issue the clearance Certificate to the requester within 24 hours. The requester can escalate it to the Consultant, Educational Initiatives, on violation of timeline.

3. The requester has to come in person and collect the clearance Certificate, by putting signature in front of the coordinator/Consultant Educational Initiatives.

4. The requester has to send the Xerox copy of the clearance Certificate to the Wipro WASE coordinator, after taking the signature of his/her TM.

Provisional / Convocation certificates 1. The WASE / MS programs students are communicated in advance

by the WASE coordinators about the receipt of Provisional Degree Certificate (PDC) / Convocation Certificate.

2. The WASE / MS programs students have to confirm their date of receiving the provisional / convocation degree certificate to the respective coordinator.

3. WASE Coordinators have to take the signature of the candidate and other relevant details while issuing the provisional / Convocation degree certificate.

4. Onsite WASE / MS programs students can authorize some person who they believe, to collect the certificates in case of urgency. Otherwise, he /she has to collect the same, once he / she comes back to Banglore or other WASE locations.

Address Proof Certificate

 Take the print out from HRweb (HRweb->My Data-> Address Proof) and get the signature from any TED Manager / your TED Manger at your location.

 Certification Examination1. WASE students are allowed take up Certification Examination as per

the direction of Talent Transformation / by the project requirement

2. Prerequisite: One year in Wipro3. The interested WASE student should send the request mail (online

request) to the Consultant, Educational Initiatives, specifying the Certification Examination details with the approval from his/her TM/SDH.

4. WASE students will avail, the Certification Exam, under "One Exam Per Year" and "U pass V Pay" policies.

5. For Reimbursement, WASE student should submit the relevant bills / documents as needed by the Accounts department.

Meeting1. From time to time, the Consultant, Educational Initiatives, may wish

to have meetings and discussions with the WASE student at his place.

2. WASE student is expected to make himself / herself free to meet and discuss during the specified day and time as per the instructions of the Consultant, Educational Initiatives

3. The Consultant, Educational Initiatives, shall initiate the discretionary actions on those WASE students who have failed to adhere to the above requirements.

Discipline   1. WASE student shall conduct himself/herself worthy and truthful in

every activity (viz. Contact classes, Tests and Exams, Viva-Voce Exams, Counseling meeting, Paper distribution and allocation, Convocation, anything related to WASE Education) of WASE MS Program conducted, in any premises of Wipro, in and outside of Bangalore.

2. WASE student shall not involve directly or indirectly in cheating, falsifying, and defaming the reputation of the Faculty or other individuals who have been working in this novel Initiative.

3. WASE student shall not involve in any event that violates Wipro's BS7799 guidelines.

4. Each WASE student is expected to exhibit the professionalism in both Academic and Project activities.

5. On any event of violation of the code of conduct by the WASE student, the decision of the Consultant, Educational Initiatives shall be final. 

Personal Folders 1. Wipro WASE coordinator will maintain the personal folders of each

WASE students till the end of 4 year of MS program (Successful Completion of the Academic Requirement)

2. WASE coordinator will hand over the same to group TED on the day of Confirmation. 

Guidelines for Faculty

Classes...

Attendance...

Examinations...

Honorarium...

Classes1. All classes are conducted at Wipro Electronics City office at

Bangalore, Madhapur office in Hyderabad and Sholinganallur office in Chennai. And classes are Instructor Led Training sessions.

2. Local transportation can be arranged for the faculty on demand and contact WASE coordinators: at Bangalore, [email protected] at Hyderabad and [email protected] at Chennai and [email protected] at Pune and [email protected] at Gurgoan.

3. Each faculty has to give the details in terms of his /her qualification, profession, institute /organization, number of teaching experience in both industry and academics, research credentials, office and residence contact numbers and correct communication address.

4. Faculty has to be punctual for each class.5. Should have a professional control over the audience. 6. Faculty can use an OHP and presentation slides. The LCDs are

installed in all the classrooms. 7. Should prepare the course plan / course handouts well in advance

and distribute the same to the students.8. Should advise the students on the textbooks, reference book and

any other source of knowledge for their better understanding of the concepts and constructs of the course.

9. Should prepare case studies and assignments relevant to the topics and give them to students to work out.

10. Faculty can seek feedback from the participants from time to time to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the program and thereby modify the course plan and structure and style of Talent delivery, if required, based on the inputs given by the students.

11. Faculty, in case of an emergency, is not able to come to the class, he / she has to provide a stand by / make an alternate

arrangement, so that the classes are not disturbed.12. Should maintain quality and integrity throughout the semester.13. Periodic feedback is taken from the WASE and MS programs

students (formal and informal) and if they are unhappy and dissatisfied with the faculty, faculty will be informed to improve in the pain areas of teaching, suggested by the employees.

14. The Consultant, Educational Initiatives, Wipro Technologies, may drop in the class any time, with the permission of the faculty in the classroom.

Attendance:

1. Attendance is COMPULSORY for the students. 2. Attendance of 75% is a pre-requisite for the students to take the

exams, unless bounded by official work. Therefore, faculty has to take attendance regularly and hand over the attendance report to the Wipro WASE Coordinators, before leaving the premises.

3. Faculty has to update the Wipro WASE Coordinators, about the students who have shortage of attendance.

 Examinations: 

1. There are THREE examinations for each semester: Mid semester exam, End Semester exam and Make up exam. Mid semester Exam carries 40% weightage while the End semester Exam carries 60% weightage. The make up exam is to help our MS program students who miss their classes and Mid semester and End semester exams due to onsite assignment / Medical reasons.

2. Mid semester Exam is a closed book exam and End semester Exam (Comprehensive- Covers full syllabus) is Open book exam. So the questions papers to be designed accordingly.

3. All exams are held at Wipro offices.4. Faculty has to be present on the day of examination and collect the

papers from the coordinators.5. Faculty has to evaluate the papers within a week and distribute

the same to the MS program students.6. Rectifying the correction if any and update the students and

coordinators7. Faculty has to evaluate the examination papers and give the

relative grading for the results, which leads to the, A, B, C, D and E grades. A is the highest grade and E is the lowest.

 Honorarium 1. Honorarium is fixed for each faculty based on the subjects. 2. For each subject Rs. 27,500/- is paid as an honorarium.

3. 50% of the honorarium is paid at the end of the closure of Mid semester grading and other 50% is paid at the end of the semester.

4. Faculty has to give his / her PAN number for IT / office purpose. 

WASE Policies:  Guidelines for Dissertation

WASE and MS (Lateral) Program

Guidelines for Dissertation 1. Identification of Topic: Dissertation topic should be related to the

day-to-day work/ ongoing project and your MS Program. In any case, it should add value to the organization. 

2. Identification of Supervisor: depending on the topic/subject of dissertation, a supervisor has to be chosen from within the work environment. 

3. Dissertation Outline: After identifying the Topic and Supervisor, you need to submit a “Proposal” constituting the aim / objective of the Dissertation Work to BITS in the prescribed format. The duly completed “Dissertation Outline” should reach the BITS Coordinator by 5:00pm on or before ______________ (dd/mm/yyyy).  

4. Two or more students CANNOT do a joint/ combined dissertation work. 

5. Registration: Subject to clearing (not having any 'E' grade or NC) all the courses and having a CGPA greater than 5.5, a student will be allowed to register for dissertation. In the first instance, the registration is provisional only. 

6. Calendar of events is published by BITS coordinator in association with Wipro Coordinator through a group mail. Update the same to your supervisor and keep informed other on other formalities to be done in course dissertation. 

7. Duration of the Dissertation work is typically FOUR months. For WASE, dissertation work is given in 8th semester and for MS lateral programs it is in their 4th semester. 

8. Submit Two copies of your dissertation to the BITS coordinator at least 15 days before your Viva-voce. 

9. All Viva Voce exams are conducted at our Electronics City office. If there is change in the location / venue, it will be communicated to each well in time.  

10. Onsite students should appear for viva-Voce at their own cost or as per the policies of the client account. 

11. Appear for Viva-Voce exam at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time. 

12. Install your presentation and demonstration material on the specified desktop / server in the specified examination hall. 

13. Students who carry their personal Laptops should inform the Wipro-BITS collaborative initiative coordinator at least one week before the exam and get the permission as per BS7799 guidelines. 

14. Duration of Viva-voce exam is typically 45 minutes for each student - 20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes demonstration and followed by 15 minutes question and answers. 

Supervisor  1. The supervisor has to essentially guide the student throughout the

project and evaluate him/ her on a regular basis. 2. The supervisor should assume the role of a guide and mentor to the

student for the dissertation. 3. The supervisor should set high quality standards for the dissertation

work and motivate the student to work hard and show tangible results. 

4. The supervisor should encourage the student to explore various sources and discover the ideas pertaining to the dissertation. 

5. The supervisor is responsible for monitoring the progress of the dissertation through weekly interaction with the student. A specific time can be fixed for the weekly interaction with the student. 

6. The dissertation students are to be treated as full-time students and full-time employees at the same time. Hence, no concession on quality or quantum of work should be made with respect to their work (job responsibilities) or their dissertation. 

7. A full-time dissertation requires a lot of hard work. The student should be urged to allocate a fixed, but substantial amount of time each day to the dissertation work, and record the progress made on a daily basis. Hence the cooperation is very much needed in carrying out the dissertation without any hitches. 

8. The supervisor is responsible for the periodic/ regular evaluation of the dissertation work and submission of the duly completed evaluation proforma / sheet by the due date specified in the course handout, to the BITS Coordinator.

9. The supervisor has to be present during the time of viva-voce and explain if queries are asked on the overall dissertation work. 

10. The supervisor can be in touch with the Wipro-BITS Collaborative Initiatives coordinators for any information on dissertation and clarification. 

Qualification and Experience of the Supervisor:  1. Min. BE/ B.Tech/MCA in the relevant discipline but preferably M.E./

MS/ M.Tech.

2. S/he should have adequate experience in the relevant domain- min 02 years for BE and min 01 year for ME/MS/M.Tech. 

Examiner 1. “The 02 Examiners and the Supervisor” together conduct the

final evaluation (final seminar, report and viva) and jointly recommend the final grade to be awarded. 

2. An examiner will be a professional who has expertise in the area pertaining to the topic of dissertation work done by a candidate. 

3. Both the examiners come into picture only when a seminar / viva is given by the student. The names of the TWO examiners have to be mentioned in the Dissertation Outline. 

4. The TWO examiners could also be from the faculty who conduct courses for the MS program at Wipro, or could be experts from outside Wipro or BITS. 

5. The choice of examiner is the Supervisor's prerogative. However, certain things should be kept in mind while choosing the examiner. 

6. The examiner should be senior, in terms of experience to the student concerned, and should have good knowledge in the area of the dissertation. In any case, the examiner can’t be from the student’s peer group. 

7. The same expert/professional could be an examiner for any number of dissertations, provided s/he fulfils the criteria mentioned above, and gives her/his consent to being an examiner for each of them. 

8. The supervisor should inform the proposed examiners well in advance and obtain their consent to be examiner, before formally nominating them as examiner. 

9. In case, the chosen examiner(s) is/ are not available during the final evaluation, other expert(s) could be chosen to act as examiner(s), and the BITS Coordinator can be informed accordingly. 

Onsite Students:

1. Even if a student is deputed onsite during the Dissertation, it is mandatory for

2. The onsite student to be present in Bangalore for the Viva Voce.3. The dates of Viva Voce to be conducted by BITS, Pilani will be

communicated to all on-site students well in advance. However, students are advised to keep the Wipro Coordinator- Mr. Rajesh Gururaja ([email protected]) informed of their latest coordinates.

N.B. Students and Supervisors should note that BITS Coordinator will accept only signed hardcopies of documents. Softcopies of the evaluation sheets or reports will not be

accepted. However, students are requested to preserve soft copy of the Final Report for Wipro Database.

WASE Policies: Examination instructions and guidelines

Mid Semester Examination 1. This is a closed book exam. And hence the usage of notes, text

books, course handouts and other study material, Laptops, PCs, Palmtops and other electronic equipments, irrespective of their size and capacity, to store and retrieve the digital information, is prohibited during the time of the examination.

2. This exam carries 40% weightage.3. The topics covered in the first 8 classes will be the syllabus for the

mid semester exam. 

End Semester Examination 1. This is a comprehensive exam. Hence the entire syllabus is

covered for setting question papers. This exam carries 60% weightage.

2. It is an OPEN book exam.3. No exchange of books and other information during exams is strictly

prohibited.4. The study material in hard copy, covering the following is allowed5. Recommended text books 6. Specified reference books 7. Faculty provided course materials 8. Class notes 9. Tutorial information, assignments, quizzes.10. Complete solution books

Common Guidelines for both the Exams 10. Usage of Laptops, PCs, palmtops and other electronic

equipments, irrespective of their size and capacity, to store and retrieve the digital information, is NOT permitted during the time of the examination.

11. Should be present at the examination all at least FIVE minutes before the examination.

12. Kindly adhere to the seating arrangements made in the examination halls.

13. Please bring at least ONE pen with full ink. I have seen some people asking for my pen.

14. Please bring pencil, eraser, scale and curchief (sweaty palmists:-) ). Otherwise answer scripts become wet!!).

15. No eatables are allowed during the examinations.

16. Sharp weapons are not allowed. 17. Those who are having less than 75% of attendance are

NOT allowed for the examination. 18. Please maintain silence during the examination. 19. Please obey the instructions given by the Invigilators. 20. Please obey the instructions given by the Invigilators.

Wipro Technologies WASE Frequently Asked Questions Website

http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/faq.htm

What is WASE?

WASE - Wipro Academy of Software Excellence, is a brainchild of Wipro in developing and deploying B.Sc/ BCA talent into the corporate world.

When was WASE started?

WASE was started in 1995 with 25 B.Sc graduates.

Who can apply for WASE?

Any B.Sc / BCA /BCM graduate with 65% aggregate and who had Mathematics as one of the subjects in his/her 11th and 12th class is eligible to apply for WASE. The aggregate percentage and the disciplines may change from time to time as per the company policy.

How can I come to know about WASE?

WASE advertisement will be published in the National English dailies.

What is the selection process?

The WASE selection process is a multi-level test comprising of:i) Aptitude Testii) Technical competency Test (Introduced from 2003)iii) Group Discussioniv) HR Interview

And all selected candidates will be intimated through e-mail.

Where do you conduct all these tests?

The WASE selection tests will be conducted at all Metros (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkota, Pune and Delhi) based on the number of applications/requests received in that geographical region. Short-listed candidates are intimated well in advance to appear for the test at these places.

How do you keep track of the WASE applicants? Because there will be hundred thousand requests / applications for WASE?

It is a good question. We receive applications in 1:100 (Requirement : Requests) ratio. Each applicant is given WASE application number and his/her resume is stored on our database. The potential aspirants of WASE are asked to log in and submit their resume to http://careers.wipro.com/wase.

All candidates who have applied for WASE need to transact Wipro through this website only.

I am a B.Sc. graduate and working in a small IT company in Pune, can I apply for WASE?

The answer is NO! Currently, we are selecting only fresh graduates who have completed their B.Sc / BCA.

I have completed my BIT (Bachelor in Information Technology), and a friend of mine has completed BCS (Bachelor of Computer Science), can we apply for your WASE?

As long as they are 3-year degree courses, we treat BIT and BCS on par with BCA and B.Sc (Computer Science), hence both of you are eligible to apply for WASE.

What is the designation of WASE recruits? Are they considered as Wipro employees?

The WASE recruit is called as "Student -Computer Appplications". The answer for your second half of the question is "NO"!

What are the documents to be submitted, at the time of my admission to BITS Pilani MS Program under Wipro-BITS collaboration?

At the time of admission to MS Program with BITS Pilani, the candidate should enclose the following documents along with the application:

1. Attested copy of Class X pass certificate for Date of Birth.

2. Attested copy of class XII pass certificate3. Attested copy of the B.Sc/BCA/BCM degree certificate or at least the Provisional Degree Certificate (PDC).Attested copy of all the year's marksheets of the degree.4.5. Five unattested passport size colour photographs

Where are the WASE recruits placed after their selection?

Since the beginning of WASE the WASE students are placed in Bangalore. From 2003 onwards, we are allocating the WASE students to other locations in India.

Is there any bond signing as part of WASE selection? Why?

Yes. All candidates selected for WASE have to sign a service agreement with Wipro for four years. Because all WASSE students will be undergoing a 4-year MS Program with BITS Pilani (Rajasthan, India), under Wipro-BITS Collaborative Initiatives.

What is WASE MS program? Is it a correspondence course or regular course?

It is a 4-year degree program (8 semesters) during which the WASE students will study different courses to fulfill the requirements of the Masters degree. This is degree is equivalent to any ME/M.Tech degree awarded by any Indian Universities.

It is a regular program under Wipro-BITS Collaborative Initiatives.

If I am right, Wipro recruits B.Sc. graduates with Physics, Maths, and Electronics as their major subject apart from Computer Science. Do you think that they all have common programming knowledge to meet your requirements? How do you make them understand programming languages and other important concepts?

Once WASE selection is over, all the selected candidates are placed into a mandatory orientation-training program. During which the WASE students will study various technologies like Basic platform skills, JAVA Technologies, Microsoft Technologies, SAP, Mainframes, Telecom and Behavioral skills.

This is a highly structured and rigorous program that provides a great learning opportunity for WASE students to understand more concepts in general and some Technologies in particular.

Depending on the organizational requirement, this program aims at 'Developing and Deploying Talent' with Technology certifications such as SCJP, MCP, MCAD, etc. WASE students will be given sufficient time and adequate resources in preparing for Certificate exams.

I would like to know who would pay the certification fees? Whether Wipro or the WASE student?

Wipro pays. But, under the policy that "U Pass V Pay". WASE student has to get registered himself / herself for the specified Certificate Examination and pass the same. Once the candidate is passed, Wipro will reimburse the fees.

Are there any specific prerequisites for the mandatory orientation-training program?

No. Since it is the mandatory program, we take all the WASE students as a raw input and prepare them to face the challenges of ever changing world of IT.

Where will the WASE MS classes be conducted? Is it in Bangalore or in BITS Pilani?

All WASE MS classes (contact classes) are held at Wipro offices. You need not go to BITS Pilani.

Are there any exams during the orientation training? If I don't perform well in these exams, will I be asked to quit the organization?

In a mandatory training program, there will be a test at the end of each course. These tests are online tests. In each test, the WASE student has to score minimum 80%. If students are not able to score the target percentage in their scheduled test, they are given two retest chances to improve their performance. If he / she is not able to score 80% in the retests will be asked to quit the organization.

How many courses are there in each semester?

Four courses per semester. Like this you will study 28 courses in first 7 semesters and doing dissertation in your 8th semester.

Can I skip any semester?

Yes you can. But with permission- from the Technical Manger and the Consultant, Educational Initiatives.

One disadvantage here is that, you will be delaying your degree.

Is attendance for the WASE classes compulsory?

Attendance is compulsory. In order to qualify for the examinations of WASE MS Program, each student has to secure at least 75% attendance in all courses. Permission will not be given for those who fall short of attendance.

Can I get leave during the orientation and MS programs?

In a mandatory training no leave is granted. However, you can get leaves during your MS programs.

How many days of leave are granted to WASE students per year?

15 days leave are granted to WASE students. This includes both casual and sick leave. If any WASE student has availed more than 15 days, is then advised to LOS (Loss of Scholarship)

What is the calendar followed for Leave for WASEians?

The calendar year for leave calculations is from 1st January to 31st

December of every year.

Is WASE MS degree a full-time or part time degree?

It is a four-year full time degree for WASE students. BITS Pilani awards the degree for all WASE students who have successfully completed their MS courses.

Is BITS Pilani MS degree recognized outside India?

Yes. Both Industries and Institutes recognize BITS MS degree.

I am fresh B.Sc graduate and I am in dilemma whether to apply for WASE or do My M.Sc. I want to know whether Wipro continues with WASE or stops in between? If continues, how long?

Wipro's main strength is its Talent. And believes in Talent Transformation as an ongoing process. As, WASE is the most sought after Educational Program in Wipro, therefore organization continues with it.

What are the benefits I get if I join WASE in your company?

i) Scholarshipii) Learning iii) Getting Master degree at the cost to the companyiv) Finally, a job in Wipro.

Can you elaborate on the scholarship amount that Wipro gives during the WASE program?

YearScholarship Amount (in Rs ) per month

First three months

Rs. 5,700/-

4th -12th

monthRs. 6,200/-

Second Year

Rs. 7,450/-

Third year Rs. 9,200/- Fourth Year

Rs. 15,500/-

On an average, Wipro invests arround Rs. 1,50,000/- per annum for each WASE student.

Can I get any interest free loans during my MS Program in Wipro?

No.

Can I get Medical assistance/ benefits from Wipro when I am doing MS program in your organization?

Yes

On completion of the WASE MS course, would the WASEians join in Career Group A OR “Team Rainbow”?

The WASEians on completion of the WASE MS course would join in Career Group A.

Can the WASEians undertake any Certification program, which can be reimbursed by Wipro?

For each employee a training budget would be finalized. Talent Transformation would look into the feasibility of nominating. However, if a need is felt for on the job training, the respective Vertical would take care.

When will I be confirmed in the organization? Whether is after my MS Program or at the end of fourth year?

As mentioned in the Bond executed at the time of joining, based on successful and satisfactory completion of Academics and Assessment of their work performance by the supervisor, Wipro reserves the right to offer suitable employment to WASE Students.

More precisely, "All WASE students will be absorbed into the organization (subject to the organizational policy) with effect from the 1st of the subsequent month, from the date of the announcement of their final results of viva-voce from BITS Pilani."

I am studying in 6th Semester WASE MS program, I would like to pursue my MBA through Symbiosis' Distance Learning Program, Pune. Can I enroll for this MBA course. This program is independent of Wipro's collaborative program with Symbiosis.

No WASEian can undergo more than one Educational Program during his / her MS Program with BITS Pilani. Hence you cannot enroll for MBA course through Symbiosis' Distance Learning Program, Pune.

Will Wipro sponsor onsite assignments for WASE students?

At least first two years, it is not. After the third year, of course, yes.

During my onsite assignment, will I get salary apart from my scholarship?

The WASE students who are eligible to onsite assignment, and if there are on long term assignment, would get onsite salary.

What is the prerequisite for WASEians to get onsite assignment?

Minimum 16 years of Schooling and subject to the changing policies of OOC (Overseas Operations Cell)

During my MS course, if am given opportunity to go on an onsite assignment, how can I get the 75% of attendance?

Your onsite assignment is an official work. Hence you will be given full attendance for that period when you are onsite, provided you have taken the prior approval from your TM and the Consultant, Educational Initiatives.

How many exams I have to take up during my MS Program?

There are two exams per course: First one is the Mid Semester Test which is conducted after the first 8 weeks of contact classes. Second

one is the End Semester Examination. This is conducted after other 8 weeks of contact classes followed by the Mid Semester Test.

The Mid Semester Test carries 40% weightage and it is closed book exam. The End Semester Examination is a closed and comprehensive examination, having 60% weightage covers the whole syllabus. It is an open book examination. The WASE students can bring the textbooks, reference books and study material to the examination, suggested by the faculty.

And, we also have provision for 'Makeup Exam', which is designed for those who have missed any of their semester exams. The provision is given ONLY to those who were onsite and had serious health problems.

Suppose if I missed both the Mid Semester Test and End Semester Examinations for my personal reasons, can I get provision for Make up exam?

There is NO provision for make up exam under reason 'personal'.

What is the curriculum of all semesters? Please give me semester-wise courses.

The curriculum for all the 8 semesters is given in the following Table.

Year Semester

Courses

First

Semester 1

Mathematics IStructured ProgrammingPrinciples of ManagementDigital Electronics and Microprocessor

Semester 2

Mathematics IIAdvanced Programming & TechniquesProbability &

StatisticsDiscrete Structures for Computer Science

Second

Semester 3

Computer Organization & ArchitecturesData Structures & AlgorithmsSoftware EngineeringObject Oriented Programming

Semester 4

Computer NetworksProgramming Languages & Compiler ConstructionDatabase Management SystemsOperating Systems

Third

Semester 5

Technical CommunicationObject oriented Analysis & DesignDesign & Analysis of AlgorithmsNetwork Programming

Semester 6

Software ArchitecturesSoftware Quality ManagementMultimedia Computing

Operating System

Fourth

Semester 7

Data WarehousingSoftware Testing MethodologiesSoftware Project ManagementNetwork Security

Semester 8

Dissertation

Dissertation and Viva-Voce:

I have an ‘E’ grade in one of the courses, can I simultaneously register for that course and do the dissertation?

No. Unless you clear all the courses, you will not be allowed to register for dissertation.

My CGPA is just below 5.5, can I register for the Dissertation?

No. BITS will offer you registration (repetition) in some course(s) in which you have obtained a poor grade in one of the earlier semesters. You got to improve your grade(s) and make your CGPA above 5.5 in order to be eligible for Dissertation. Registration in some course(s) for improving CGPA will depend on the availability of courses in a particular semester.

My supervisor / examiner(s) is/are coming back only after …!

Find an alternate supervisor / examiner(s) immediately. In case a change the supervisor is necessary, please hand over a fresh copy of the “Original Outline/ Proposal” duly signed by the new supervisor to the BITS Coordinator. Any change can be done only with the consent of the current supervisor. Replacing or finding a new examiner is the responsibility of the Supervisor.

What is the implication of delayed seminar presentation?

You will be awarded GA (Grade Awaited). However, you should obtain the required permission for delayed presentation.

My supervisor / examiner(s) is/are abroad, I am in Bangalore, how will the viva be conducted?

Viva can be conducted by you being here and your supervisor / examiner being abroad, you need to have an examiner locally (apart from an examiner abroad) to vouch for you. The BITS & Wipro Coordinators should be intimated about these dates well in advance.

Apart from Video conferencing, is there any other way to conduct the viva/ seminar in the above situation?

No, seminar and viva cannot be conducted through E-MAIL, FAX, TELEPHONE or VoIP.

When will I get my degree?

After completing all your evaluation components, including seminars / Vivas and your supervisor recommending you a grade and having cleared the Viva Voce by BITS, Pilani, the Dean, DLPD will pass it on to the examination committee. Subject to the approval of your grade by the examination committee, the degree will be awarded to you.

On Successful completion of dissertation, will I get a certificate?

On successful completion of dissertation you will get the marksheet (Transcript, as known in BITS parlance) from BITS, Pilani which will have grades of all the 3 semesters and rating (non- letter grade) for your dissertation. Apart from the Transcript, you will also be awarded the Degree Certificate (Provisional, in the first instance and later, Diploma of the Degree, ie Original Degree Certificate) by BITS, Pilani.

Is the presence of the Supervisor/ Examiner(s) mandatory during the Viva Voce by the BITS Panel?

Yes! The student should be accompanied by at least one of the three ie either the supervisor or one of the two examiners. All three together are always welcome.

If, I'm onsite during some/most/all of the final dissertation period, how do I go about completing my dissertation?

a. You could take up the mid-sem presentation with your mentor/supervisor via telecon/in person.

b. Arrange to submit hardcopies of the mid-sem report as specified in your dissertation guidelines.

c. Get to know all possible viva dates for the final dissertation presentation from your WASE coordinator from BITS. Typically, A few dates are added toward the end of the semester to facilitate students onsite and not available on the original dates. This is decided by Wipro and BITS depending on the number of such cases.

d. Presence during end-sem viva is mandatory. Mentor/supervisor need NOT be present. If you could be back at the viva center's location by any of the available dates, please discuss with your WASE Coordinator from BITS to arrange for the same. (This is not needed, if your schedule fits into the whole regular viva timetable dates)

e. In the worst case, you cannot reach the viva center location on any of the given dates, you will have to arrange to send a mail from your mentor and/or manager to the Manager Educational Initiatives WIPRO and BITS Coordinator in charge of WASE, informing of the reason and requesting that you will take up the dissertation/viva during the next semester/years dates. Please note that your provisional certificate will not be generated unless you complete your viva with BITS.