English-speaking Indian grads a tad short of BPO grade

NEW DELHI: Even as India rates itself top-of-the-heap in offering outsourcing services to the world’s best brands, a recent survey based on the tests of 10,500 students by skills assessment company MeritTrac across 17 cities has found that only 15% of the applicants meet the industry expectations in grammar with an equivalent number having a neutral accent.

Only around 10% of the graduates who want to enter the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector stand up to the mark in English language skills.

“On a cumulative rating based on all parameters, 10% of the total applicant population meets the industry expectations,” MeritTrac co-founder and director Madan Padaki said.

While over 90% of the applicants had acceptable voice clarity, only 23% of them were fluent in the language, the survey, which has been developed as the National Index of Communication Skills, said. The survey revealed that applicants in Tier 2 cities were below-average in terms of grammar, accent neutrality and fluency as compared to those in Tier 1 cities.

For the services industry, the survey found that 33% of the applicants had the required level of communication skills.

While 60% of the applicants fared well in articulation, just over 43% did well in grammar, 65% in assertiveness and 67% in confidence.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Delhi merit assessment zone of MeritTrack, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the assessment tool must be so designed that it reaches out to all talent pools of the country and the benchmarks need to be raised so that people with proper skills can be recruited.

He explained that communication skills did not only mean accent improvement but also parameters like articulation, assertiveness and confidence.

“We need to take steps like expanding the network for assessment to reach out to smaller cities and fixing a benchmark for assessment of skilled workers for the IT sector so that India’s IT sector can keep growing in leaps and bounds,” Karnik said, adding, “Our system of education does not encourage development of communication skills. Rarely are we required to communicate. We are only expected to take notes in class. The result is that while we produce the best of technical brains, when required to explain the technicalities to the customers or even to the board room, they fail miserably.”