Nasscom, British Council partner to enhance English proficiency of IT-BPM employees

Industry body Nasscom on Tuesday tied up with British Council to improve English language proficiency of working professionals in the IT-Business Process Management (BPM) companies.

As part of the partnership, EnglishScore will be made available to 200,000 users on Nasscom's FutureSkills platform, and will further work to embed the workplace English test within their network of employers and colleges throughout India, British Council and Nasscom said in a joint statement.

"Technical skills are important but building soft skills like spoken English is equally critical. Over the years, English has become the global language of business," Amit Aggarwal, CEO, IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council and FutureSkills said.

"Our workforce in the BPM Industry specifically need to build on English speaking skills and not let it become a barrier in their growth," he added.

With the BPM industry accounting for over 6.6 per cent of the nation's GDP and employing over 4.1 million skilled individuals, improving the overall English proficiency of this workforce will help India meet its target of USD 5 trillion GDP milestone by 2024, the statement said.

According to the India Skills Report 2019, English language is among the top three skills that employers look for in their employees.

"We're delighted to partner with Nasscom to improve the employability of working professionals in the IT-BPM industry through our new free English test," Barbara Wickham OBE, Director, British Council, India said.