Indian version of TOEFL

New Delhi, May 11 - With the demand for English language skills increasing across the country, India has come up with its own standardised English language test on the lines of TOEFL and IELTS.
 

The English and Foreign Language University in Hyderabad has formed the All-India English Language Testing Authority that will conduct the first standardised test on May 30. "Both TOEFL and IELTS are tests needed by the US and the UK respectively for students and professionals wanting to study or work in those countries. It is not taken widely by Indians or even those wanting a proficiency certificate for the Indian market," said Vice-Chancellor Abhai Maurya.

The tests will have three levels - Class X, graduation and post-graduation - and students will be awarded proficiency certificates. "We are already in talks with the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) to conduct an English proficiency test for Class X pass-outs since they will have no board exam from this year," said Maurya.

At Rs 1,500 the test is much cheaper than its foreign counterparts, which cost around Rs 8,000 per sitting. The test will include reading and writing and subsequently test speaking and listening skills. The testing authority is also talking to University of Cambridge, which conducts various assessment tests worldwide.

Government schools have also woken up to the importance of teaching students the Queen's language. Seven states, including Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Punjab, have tied up with the British Council, India, to train their English teachers.Government sources

 

Online Degrees Verification

The government has appointed a task force to create a national database of academic qualifications to ensure confidentiality, authenticity, online verification and easy retrieval of degrees . In the private sector, software and insurance industry groups currently manage their own database to prevent fraud.According to the website of the ministry of human resource development (HRD), there are a total of 490 government-recognized universities in the country with around 2.54 million students getting a graduate or postgraduate degree every year. Apart from this, 9.5 million students clear their secondary school examinations.The database will not just stock documents virtually, but also create a system for storing hard copies, said Sanjay Dhande, chairman of the government-appointed task force and director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. 

The group was appointed by the HRD ministry, which oversees education, in January this year. Verification of degrees will be cheaper and quicker if the project is implemented.“We have prepared the road map of implementation, of which the first and foremost is that a law needs to be enacted to give legal standing to the database,” Dhande told Mint over phone from Kanpur. The task force, also entrusted with identifying a registered depository that would create the database, has formed two sub-committees to look into the matter. 

Dhande said only registered depositories are being considered for the job.Another official of the task force, requesting anonymity since he is not authorized to speak to the media, said universities and various education boards will also be asked to upload documents online as the database is implemented.

He also said that legislation for the database is expected to be in place by September-October. 

Academic certificates from school to graduate and postgraduate levels, including professional degrees, will be mandatorily registered with the depository through the respective boards, universities and other institutions once the legislation is passed, with information retrievable on payment of a fee. 

Nasscom, the country’s information technology (IT) industry group, launched the National Skills Registry (NSR), a centralized database of employees for independent background checks, in January 2006. 

Till date, 83 companies have joined NSR, comprising more than 70% of the workforce in IT and allied services.