The Hindu Business Line : How good are we in English?

Bangalore, April 22 It’s time Indians shake off the English language smugness. Recent statistics have thrown up some surprises in the theory that the Indians’ mastery over the English language could give us an edge in the race towards globalisation.

The National Index of Communication Skills (NI-CS) brought out early this year by MeritTrac, a skills assessment company, points out that only 20 per cent of the candidates evaluated met the overall English criteria required by the industry. The report also classifies skills index based on individual evaluation parameters with grammar emerging the lowest with a throughput of just 7.5 per cent.

“We were surprised at such low suitability numbers that we decided to launch an English assessment and learning programme in India,” says Mr Madan Padaki, co-founder and CEO, MeritTrac Services. In a tie-up with Cengage Learning, MeritTrac has launched eEnglish, a programme that combines print and online platforms for English learning and feedback through scientific assessments. MeritTrac intends to administer this programme to around 4,000 people in the banking, financial, retail and manufacturing sectors.

GlobalEnglish, a California-based company that provides learning and support for business English communication, launched its corporate learning services in India last week.

The Indian IT industry will be the target for its services, says its President and CEO, Mr Deepak Desai.

“This is mainly for knowledge workers who interact with people all over the world.”

In a study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, it was found that only 13 per cent of university graduates from low-wage countries are suitable for employment in MNCs, and the No. 1 reason for this is lack of English skills.

However, teaching English language in India will be a lot more complex than in China because of the various levels of the language knowledge among different strata of people, points out Mr Desai. Although English is looked upon as a common skill among people in the technology and business sectors, it is not always a fact, he says. “Outside the major cities, fewer people speak English as a second language, or speak it well.”

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