In his recent book India After Gandhi: A History of the World’s Largest Democracy author Ramachandra Guha mentions five mainstays of the idea of modern India – the bureaucracy, the railways, Bollywood, cricket and the English language. With the possible exception of Bollywood, Britain had a role – perhaps not always a happy one – in the making of these institutions and traditions that bind India’s democracy.

The role of English language in India is a curiously ambiguous one. Politically, English has long served as the link language, bridging our North and South divide. Well into the 1990s, provision of English language in public education was a much debated topic. But since that time, as the economic juggernaut cast away the shackles of rigid state control, the service sectors took off in a big way and information technology became the IT thing in India, bringing with it a groundswell of demand for English language competence from all sections of the society.

In the public sector, economic and education policy makers have come around to the idea that provision of good English language education is one of the cheapest and most effective tools of generating equitable economic growth. The linguist David Graddol predicts that by 2015, a certain level of English competence will become a common minimum requirement in education systems across the globe.

The private sector is equally keen on quality English language training. English has strengthened its position as the language of global commerce – and not just because of the economic might of the Anglophone countries such as the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada. Recent research shows that 72% of English communication involves two non-native users of the language. English is the language of the global service sector – from IT to tourism.

It is India’s vast pool of English-speaking workforce (it is estimated that between 5 and 20% of India’s population use the English language at varied degrees of competence) that has fuelled the rapid growth in IT and allied sectors. What is less well known is that the global hospitality industry is increasingly relying on English speaking Indian professionals to handle the tourism boom. One only has to step into a London hotel to find out the truth! Corporate India realises that the superior communication skills of its work force had differentiated India’s offer to the world and has helped it zoom ahead, especially when compared to others in the BRIC pack (Brazil-Russia-India-China).

India’s work force is growing at a phenomenal rate – over 11 million new jobs were created in India in the last fiscal, the most in the world, reported the Times of India recently. Yet that talent pool is fast running dry and recruiters are parched. NASSCOM predicts a severe staffing crisis in India IT-enabled industries, not because of lack of manpower with ‘hard’ or ‘domain’ skills, but because of its lack of ‘soft’ communications skills, of which English language competence is a key factor. India Inc. can scarce afford this scarcity.

Last year the British Council in India undertook a very comprehensive study of the English language requirement of both the education sector (public as well as private) and the employment sector, speaking to over 200 key decision makers across 11 locations in India. While the baseline findings of the study held no surprise, the magnitude of the demand for British Council’s expertise in this field overwhelmed us.

We found that English was being taught in a wide variety of contexts and for even a wider variety of purposes, and sometimes, sadly, for no specific purposes at all. For instance, we came across an institution teaching a course, which, for the lack of a better phrase, could only be dubbed ‘English for Desperate Housewives!’

There was a striking similarity in the narrative of woes of most state education boards to offer quality teacher training (in most states, teacher proficiency was the biggest hurdle) and equally, the diversity of training needs of the employment and corporate sector was staggering. In the midst of this all, it was evident that the education providers for the masses were not in consonance with the job providers, and there was an urgent need to bring the two principal parties to the table, along with the necessary expertise to address their needs.

As the largest provider of English language services in the world – the British Council teaches or certifies over 1.5 million English language learners globally every year – we are uniquely positioned to offer solutions to this wide spectrum of demand. Colleagues in the UK are working on a range of global products for English that can be customised and delivered across the world. In India we are gearing up to offer teacher training in partnership with state education boards and also working with corporate organisations  to provide more advanced language training suited to international business and commerce.

We will invest significantly in our English project in the next five years and also work with public and private institutional partners in India and Sri Lanka to create a big difference to English language learners of all ages and backgrounds. The mega project kicks off later this year with a high-level conference where we will bring together the top English language professionals, education policy framers, educationists, and the cream of business and media from India, Sri Lanka and the UK.

But learning a language can also be unbridled fun and is best done outside the confines of the classroom. So we are also looking at possibilities of learning English through sports and exploring a tie-up with the English Premier League for starters. Imagine being coached in football and learning English in the process!

Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti is Head Communications and English Language Trainin in East India.

Email the author at debanjan.chakrabarti@in.britishcouoncil.org with your views on the English language and we will publish a selection of them in the next issue of Connecting or on our website.