From 2008 – 09, we worked with the Employment Generation and Marketing Mission (EGMM) to provide English language and soft skills course for Grade XII students in social welfare residential schools in Andhra Pradesh. This project sought to address the issue of employability among rural youth in the state and the course is ongoing.
From 2009-10, the British Council in partnership with the LANCO Institute of General Humanitarian Trust delivered an ‘English for Employability’ training course to 20 master trainers and 40 teachers thereby reaching 1000 final year undergraduate students. This initiative was primarily aimed at improving the employment prospects of college-leavers in rural and semi-rural Andhra Pradesh.
In early 2009, the British Council commenced work with the Aga Khan Foundation to reach out to disadvantaged communities settled on Nizamuddin Basti area in New Delhi. The objective was to enable young adults in the age group of 16 to 24 years to gain employment by improving their English language skills. Under this project, 17 teachers were dentified from the community and 9 of them are still teacher young people in the basti even today.
Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., publisher of the Times of India newspaper entered into partnership in 2010 to improve levels of English teaching and learning among disadvantaged communities in India through the Teach India Campaign. The aim of the project is to improve the employability of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through a network of NGOs. So far we have directly trained 1,600 volunteers in Delhi and Mumbai who have taught over 28,000 learners. Over 60% of these learners have now been offered employment.