The Automotive Center of Excellence has been around since 2006. We have about 30 courses that we offer most of them in light and heavy vehicle. The partnership between iACE and ACE is important because it is the first of its kind. The opportunities for ACE in India are quite substantial. There's about a million people turning 18 every month a lot of them want automotive careers because that sector is booming in India.
The Journey of iACE started somewhere in March 2013. It was the vision of our CM (Chief Minister) at that time, and presently the Prime Minister of India, that a center for automotive should come in Gujarat. Particularly he was interested because Gujarat was not having the manufacturing culture. And also he was looking at how all the knowledge of automotive manufacturing can be imparted to all these areas.
What they recognised was that Australia was very good at training apprentices and those skills are transportable.
With the industry and the development of automotive technology in India, the vocational skills needs to be a real strength.
We offer variety of programs for a wide variety of learner categories, wherein this 80/20 unique blend of training and education programs are being offered.
Most of the courses over there are specifically built and designed by us to suit the Indian market. We run a twelve-month program which covers automotive technology and a bit of the body stream. There's a number of 80-day programs where it's more specific for powertrain or body or EV (electric vehicle) and at the moment we're kicking off and running some short courses on the demand for electric vehicle safety and they're five days long and the demand for that is something like four to five hundred students a month.
Going forward we are working with our knowledge partner ACE Kangan, for all the futuristic training programs like EV (electric vehicle), HV (hybrid vehicle) and all the other training advancements that would come in the automotive sector.
I'm really thankful from the bottom of my heart, the way they have shown their openness in each and every steps I think we got all the support from ACE.
The feedback from the students is great because they understand it is different. They also like it because there's a very good alignment with an Australian provider that has a great brand.
The main thing I'm most proud of when I went to iACE late last year, they're care for the wellbeing of the students was exceptional. They put in 120 percent.
This venture is going to be really fruitful, and in future I am very much confident that we are going to have more centers like this. And finally the vision of India where we're looking for re-skilling India should become the real truth for everybody.
There's so many other organisations looking at the concept and how well it's worked, I think there'll be some other players in there who will reinvent another iACE but I think it'll just grow bigger and bigger and bigger.