The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Tuesday announced January 3 as the last date to apply for the centralised test for the graduates of Computer Science and Information Technology to get apprenticeships at the top IT companies in the country.

According to the official sources, the test is being conducted by the HEC in collaboration with the Special Investment Facilitation Council, IT ministry, Pakistan Software Export Board, Pakistan IT Industry Association and National Computing Education Accreditation Council.

The test will be taken for the students of the 7th Semester of CS and related disciplines through the Virtual University platform.

The programme is aimed at facilitating the placement of talented IT students in the industry to acquire hands-on experience on the latest technologies for better job opportunities in local and international markets.

As per HEC, the last date for registration of the test is January 3, while the test will be held on January 7.

The students, enrolled in the 7th Semester of BS/BE Computing or related disciplines, are eligible for the test.

The students were asked that the focus areas of the test include Operating Systems, Software Engineering, Data Structures, Networking, Programming, Databases, Problem Solving/Analytics.