Chetan Bhagat live and unplugged! December 2, 2009
Posted by Stephen in English for Progress.Tags: Chetan Bhagat, efponline, English for Progress, English language, One Night at the Call Centre, Third Policy Dialogue, Two States
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Dear readers, I promise you don’t want to miss out on this!
We’ve uploaded Part 1 of Chetan Bhagat’s appearance at the Third Policy Dialogue. You can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/user/Britishcouncilindia#p/c/182A295AA1364815/24/dS9kh3qeWYg
We’ll be uploading the final parts in the next few days, so stay tuned. And tell us what you think of Chetan’s address.
Don’t miss a thing! November 22, 2009
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The Third Policy Dialogue is physically over but the discussion continues. For updates on blog posts and new uploads to English for Progress online, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/efponline
Keeping the discussion going November 20, 2009
Posted by Stephen in English for Progress.2 comments
It’s Friday evening and the face to face conference is over. It was a fantastic two days!
Thank you to all of you who have posted and commented on this blog – the discussion has been stimulating, wide ranging and engaging. We want to keep the discussion going over the next few weeks, so we’ll be keeping the blog open. Many of the speakers will be checking the posts about their sessions, so a good oportunity to connect with them via comments. You can also comment directly on the recorded sessions on the same page where you view them, and read others’ comments. We’ll also be uploading more photos and interviews, so keep an eye on YouTube and Picassa.
Problem with comments page now resolved November 20, 2009
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There was a problem with the film comments page, where if you used inverted commas or quotation marks the page generated an error. This has now been resolved and you should be able to post without any error.
Link from blogs to programme schedule November 20, 2009
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We’ve put a link from the blog page to the programme schedule, so that you can access the session pages from the blog directly. The link to ‘English for Progress online’ is under ‘Blogroll’ on the right hand side.
The President’s shoe November 19, 2009
Posted by Stephen in English for Progress.Tags: English for Progress, kindness, NASSCOM, shoes, sole, Third Policy Dialogue
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I hope Som Mittal will forgive me for sharing this story, told to me by a very senior corporate delegate. I thought it was such a nice conference story that I wanted to blog about it. So, it seems Som lost the sole of his shoe during the panel discussion this morning. He left the stage and bumped into the corporate delegate in the foyer, who promptly offered to swap shoes with him, saying ‘Well, NASSCOM has always done a lot for us’. While Som returned to the panel discussion (with his new shoes) the delegate very kindly sent out Som’s soleless shoe for repair. Som was later able to leave the conference with his sole intact.
What a lovely story!
What is to be done? November 14, 2009
Posted by Stephen in English for Progress.Tags: BPO, English, English for Progress, ITES, NASSCOM, teacher training, teaching English, Third Policy Dialogue
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The fact that 85-90% of college leavers in India are not considered immediately suitable for employment in the ITES sector presents a huge challenge for the industry. So what is the solution? One of the action points from the 2008 NASSCOM-Everest BPO report is to:
“Increase employability and access untapped talent pools by creating greater linkages between the current education system and the needs of the BPO industry, and facilitating the development of BPO-specific education models.”
The report goes on to make a number of recommendations in this area:
“Initiatives related to education are required to expand the employable talent pool in India. The industry needs to work more aggressively with the Government to create greater linkage between the current education system and requirements of the BPO industry. This can be done by 1) policy changes like liberalization of higher education, 2) increased collaboration between industry and academic institutions to take up initiatives such as introduction of BPO-specific curriculum and improving students’ access to funds for higher studies, 3) introducing coursework changes and teacher training at the school level in accordance with future requirements of the BPO industry. There is also a significant opportunity for private players to step in and create a BPO education industry. Such a move should be based on creating longer-term training programs to improve communication and other skills required by the BPO industry. Specific training programs need to be developed to create several intermediate levels of skills and specialisation (between generalists and highly trained specialists), and to bring alternate talent pools (e.g. high school graduates, educated housewives) into the BPO workforce.”
I think educationalists would probably disagree that the purpose of education is to provide employees for the BPO sector, although they would probably agree that teacher training and curriculum development are needed.
What are your views?
Two simple questions November 11, 2009
Posted by Stephen in English for Progress.Tags: David Graddol, efponline, English for Progress, Project English, teaching English, Third Policy Dialogue
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What does English mean to you?
What does English mean to the people in your country?
Answers please!