Pvt agencies take charge of English speaking programme

Failing to evoke an interest amongst city government school students for English speaking course, the UT department of technology, has invited private agencies to take charge of the C-TOSS programme for better results in government schools.

From the last one year, the Regional Institute of English (RIE) handled the project by offering 101 instructors in government schools, however, the IT department officials said the assessments of senior students had shown a decline in performance.

Centre head of Society for Promotion of Information Technology in Chandigarh (SPIC) Anil Prashar said, “It was realised that since the entire project was with one institute, there was no competition. Now, with private agencies coming forward and taking charge of separate schools, there will be a competition between agencies as assessments will be evaluated individually.”

“The purpose of conducting sample-checking would be to see how students are fairing in skills and training. This programme initially started to provide city students with high level employment and to enable them high quality delivery of IT enabled services.

Now the purpose of the programme will be to provide overall training to students as these days soft skills are required in every profession. This time, we will take 90 schools under training, “added Prashar.

Till date, around 12-13 agencies including the Regional Institute of English (RIE) have applied, out of which five-six agencies will be shortlisted. Prashar said after short listing agencies, the programme will soon start December onwards.

“Due to this tender floating process, the programme has been delayed but from the next academic session, we will make sure the programme starts early to ensure required 72 hours of training in the project,” said Prashar. The department officials also said a budget worth Rs crore is spent annually on this project, out of which Rs 22 lakh is spent on paying service tax. Now on, there will be specific norms for agencies to follow, where adequate instructors will be given to each school.

The district education office along with the school heads will monitor the training in respective schools. While, the SPIC will be responsible to conduct class wise sample-checks of monthly assessments.

C-TOSS programme

In order to strengthen the objective of making Chandigarh a technology hub, the Society for Promotion of Information Technology in Chandigarh (SPIC) under the aegis of department of information technology, UT administration, had taken the initiative to start Chandigarh Training on Soft Skills (C-TOSS) programme to develop skilled professionals for the ITES/BPO sector.

The training programme was meant to upgrade skill-sets in Chandigarh with emphasis on skills required for ITES professionals. It’s been 11 years since the IT department started this programme in government schools for Class 9, 10 and 11.

Till 2013, the programme was run by few private agencies including Yes Infobiz, C-Tec, VR Systems, Global Voice and Competent School, while in 2014; the entire project was given to the Regional Institute of English (RIE), Sector 32.