kochi this is not a model for any institute and certainly not one for developing human resources the ambitious model finishing school set up by the institute of human resources development ihrd in the city during the previous left government is limping along following low response for its courses there has been as much as a 50 drop in students opting for soft skill development courses ranging from the shortterm employability enhancement programme to communicative english from around 200 students who completed various 40day to one month courses offered by the institute in 20112012 the numbers fell to a mere 100 in 20122013 according to sources at the finishing school the school meanwhile has a capacity to train over 700 engineering and other students appearing for professional courses annually while soft skill development programmes provided by engineering colleges have reduced interest in programmes run by the school the slowdown in recruitment by it companies has also contributed to the current state of affairs according to sources we started the school when colleges were not paying much attention for developing soft skills of students but now the situation has changed and most of the engineering colleges are providing skill development programmes from the very first year a source said last year the school conducted only few shortterm courses and was busy providing training to ihrd staff including principals of its colleges to tide over the crisis the school has also come up with summer courses for plus two students the finishing school was set up in 2010 with an aim to enhance soft skills of students who have completed professional courses the shortterm employability enhancement programme offered by the institute includes oral and written communication in english aptitude training and interview and presentation skills other courses offered by school which has three classrooms that can seat about 30 students each and a computer lab are communicative english internet technologies and webbased data development though the institute has three permanent staff apart from guest faculties in kochi sources said that at present it was running with one staffer most of the time however v a arun kumar director of the school denied there was any staff shortage apart from courses offered by the school the faculty has also been visiting engineering colleges under the institute to train students he said the school charges about rs 10000 for the 40day employment enhancement programme and rs 30000 for the webbased data development course