• NASSCOM signs MoU with Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER)
• 20,000 students across eight states to undertake the test

NASSCOM, the chamber of commerce and “voice” of the IT software and services industry in India, today announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) for the rollout of NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC) in the state. With this NASSCOM aims to conduct NAC test amongst 20,000 students across eight states in the region including Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim between September 07 to January 08.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, said, “This MoU, initiating our partnership with the North Eastern region marks a significant milestone for NASSCOM and NAC. This will enable us to further the goal of identifying talent from the Indian hinterland and providing them with job opportunities in the high-growth BPO industry. We are particularly happy to be taking NAC into the North East, which has an abundance of well-educated, talented and hard-working youngsters. This will also showcase and unleash the human resource potential of North Eastern India, and help to maintain India’s edge in the off-shoring industry with balanced and continued supply of world class human power from all regions of the country”.
He further added that, “We are delighted that Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union Minister for the North Eastern Region is here with us today. His presence signifies the full support of his Ministry and the government to take forward the objectives of the MOU, and for making NAC an employment enhancement program in the region”.
North Eastern region over the years has emerged as an important source for suitable and industry-ready talent. The students in the NE region have good written and verbal communications skills which makes the region very attractive for recruitment for the BPO Industry.

NAC was launched as an industry standard assessment and certification program to ensure the transformation of a "trainable" workforce into an "employable workforce" hence creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent for the BPO sector. The target audience is the final-year students who will be venturing into the job markets after a year’s time. The intent behind assessing these students  is to identify the level of talent which is available in various parts of India, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and to provide feedback to them about areas of further improvement which will make them employable.

Key benefits of NAC NAC will increase the reach of ITES–BPO industry to tier II and tier III cities for their sourcing requirements; and additionally will spread awareness about job opportunities in the ITES-BPO industry Industry a) Creation of a national standard for recruitment of entry level talent b) Up to 50% cost savings in industry’s sourcing cost c) Ease of benchmarking for individual processes with industry standards d) Ability to create visibility and reach out to a larger audience Job aspirants a) A common, transparent process across companies in the ITES-BPO sector b) Ability to identify their strengths and weaknesses and self-assess training needs Training Firms a) Insights into the training requirements given the skill gaps b) Inputs to help create and refine training modules which deliver immediate benefits and hence has greater buy-in Governments a) Help explore talent in Tier II and Tier III Cities for industry requirements b) Understanding talent strength areas and areas of improvement c) Employment generation and creation of education to employability linkage d) Help in attracting serious investors by enabling State governments to plan their investment policies basis the ground data about talent availability

The NAC pilot testing phase was officially launched in August 2005 and successfully completed by testing approximately 6,000 candidates across various ITES-BPO companies. Post the pilot, NAC was rolled out in Rajasthan in 2006 where 2500 people took the NAC test. A job fair was held in association with the Department of Information Technology & Communication (DoIT&C) and Government of Rajasthan after the scores were released in Jaipur in March 2007.

Background about NAC

NASSCOM has been working with Indian ITES-BPO industry to create a national assessment and certification program – NAC. The initiative is aimed at creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent. This will be done by continuously assessing candidates on key skills through a national standard assessment, thus making it easier for firms to screen candidates and also provide training need analysis to candidates. This will then be tied in to training and development efforts to help more candidates become competent to work in the industry.

 

 

Updated on: 10 Jul, 2007