Bullish About English
W hen your English skills are top of the line, it can certainly take you places. And nobody knows that better than Cambridge University Press — who have completed 10 years in India. Edex got chatting with Ratnesh Kumar Jha, MD, South Asia. Excerpts:
What is the edge that English can still give students today?
For a multilingual country like India, it goes with saying that knowledge of English is an advantage. The BPO/ITES industry has boomed due to our knowledge of English, and we have specific programmes to skill participants for a career in these industries. The retail sector also requires professionals with good English. There is a lot you can achieve with your words.
With so much talk about the Digital India mission, is there anything related to it on your radar?
One of our offerings is e-kranthi, which is about the creation of capacity with respect to ELT resources, mostly in the higher secondary domain. With increasing bandwidth and internet penetration, we are looking at exposing learners to world-class quality content online.
How much focus are you putting on English Language Training (ELT)?
We create curriculum-based content for teachers. There are also many centres in India that impart ELT to students, young adults, professionals, teachers, and retired people — there is something for everyone. We are also big on training for the IELTS exam. Right now, more than ever, we are focusing on digital solutions for teachers and school students and have tied up with a number of them.
Tell us about the journals you produce every year.
We have been publishing academic books, monographs, journals, etc, for over 600 years now. These high quality journals in every subject imaginable have come to the aid of the academic community and students for a long time now. We have a full-fledged research and publishing team to take care of this. Professors from premier institutions like the IITs and IISc work with these teams and almost 50-60 journals are produced each year in the South Asia region.
For more details about their study material, check out www.cambridgeindia.org.— shilpa.vasudevan@newindianexpress.com