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Sankar Radhakrishnan

Thiruvananthapuram, Sept. 30 UEI Global School of Service Management, an educational venture promoted by the New York-based Berggruen Holdings, plans to have 60 training centres across the country by 2010.

According to Mr Praveen Roy, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, UEI Global School of Service Management, around 21 of these centres will be owned by franchisees while the remaining will be company-owned. However, even in franchisee-run training centres, the centre manager will be from UEI Global, he pointed out. The company currently has 20 training centres across India, six of which are run by franchisees.

UEI Global is also considering the possibility of starting training centres outside India. The company has received some franchise enquiries from outside the country and is in the process of evaluating them, Mr Roy said.

While Berggruen Holdings had initially invested $12 million in UEI Global, the quantum of investment has now been hiked to $30 million, he added.

The company, which started operations with training programmes in hospitality management and food production, has expanded its offering to include courses for the retail, aviation and travel sectors.

It is also offering training programmes in areas such as personality development and communication skills development.

Outlining the rationale for expanding the company’s portfolio of courses, Mr Roy said: “There are sectors like aviation, hospitality and retail with a lot of potential where the demand for trained manpower is high, but because of the lack of skill the jobs are not filled.”

The company’s courses are intended to cater to this demand for skilled manpower. For instance, its ‘English for communication’ courses focus on spoken English and the appropriate use of language, he said.

At the same time, these courses go beyond teaching English and also help with overall personality development, he added.

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