Chennai: The e-learning portal that the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) launched recently will be both asynchronous and synchronous, informed Preeti Malhotra, President of the institute.
She expects that the new the facility, which would be accessible on home desktops and from Internet cafes, on a 24x7 basis, will be beneficial for students from rural and semi-urban areas looking for company secretarial education.

"Their learning, self-evaluation, querying and interactive education needs will all be satisfied through this modern distance learning process," says Malhotra, during the course of an e-mail interaction with Business Line.

"After the virtual class room model is launched, e-learning will provide opportunity to students to interact with the faculty and students online and live."

The ICSI is designing training programmes and modules in various aspects of capital market functioning to make the company secretary proficient in both Indian and international securities and commodities market.
In collaboration with BSE Training Institute, ICSI is launching training programmes in financial analysis, securities analysis, share valuation, derivatives, stock exchange working, market analysis, investment analysis, and functioning of market intermediaries, brokers and portfolio managers. The training will help company secretaries to acquire expertise in international securities markets, listing abroad and international finance through these training programmes.

To make company secretaries specialists and experts in managing corporates and corporate assets during insolvency proceedings, the institute has entered into collaboration with INSOL, an international organisation of insolvency specialists.

The collaboration will enable the institute to conduct training programmes for professionalising the Indian corporate insolvency work. Efficient handling of insolvency work can help the investors, various stakeholders and the economy as a whole by ensuring a faster unlocking and reallocation of resources.
The directors' orientation programmes organised by the institute aims at imparting better legal and financial knowledge, for effective business orientation, to ensure better boardroom management, board leadership dynamics and visionary team direction, all of which add crucial long-term value and vision to corporate functioning.

Factors such as the integrity, quality, independence, judgment, knowledge and experience count while acquiring and applying skills of better directorship. The programmes equip professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills so that they are able to contribute effectively as corporate directors, especially as independent directors.

Taking inventory of the demands on company secretaries 10 years down the line, the institute adapted a new syllabus to be implemented from 2008. According to the new syllabus, the three stages are Foundation Programme, Executive Programme and Professional Programme.

The new syllabus also introduces new concepts and papers, new emphasis and futuristic trends.