Access, annual, apparent, areas, attributed, aware, bulk, cites, cited, decades, despite,

economic, economy, estimates, featured, federation, flexible, highlighted, highlights,

infrastructure, labour, nevertheless, over, percentage, percentage, policies, potential,
primary, publishes, require, reveals, revealed, sector, sector, sectors, sectors, shift,
somewhat, survey, under

Bovenkant formulier
Onderkant formuliBovenkant formulierIndia is rapidly losing one of its clear _economic_
advantages _over_ China , with the number of Chinese able to speak English on par with
its neighbour and rival.

A new study _attributed published ed by the British Council says China may already
have more English speakers than India , a remarkable development , given the language
legacy of British colonial rule in south Asia.

The study , English Next India by David Graddol , _reveals_s that India is likely to find it
harder to compete with China , which already has better __infrastructure_ and a more
__flexible_ _labour_ market.

The study __highlightsestimates_s that less than 5 per cent of the Indian population
speaks English. This would mean that by 2010 only about 55m people in India will be
fluent English speakers.

The report compares this with an _apparent_______ 20m new Chinese speakers of
English each year , a figure _revealed_d to new education _sectors_______ that
_require_ English to be a compulsory subject in China’s _primary_ schools. According
to an earlier British Council study , China had 200m English speakers in 1995.

In both countries exact figures are vague and those _cited___d often confuse the
number of students enrolled in English classes with real proficiency.

_Nevertheless_ , English Next India __revealshighlights_s the lack of English-medium

education as one main cause of India’s educational failure. It says this has hindered the
spread of the language _despite? ______ high demand for it from the employment
_sector_____ .

Recent studies have shown that India’s talent pool may be drying out. With nearly two-
thirds of India’s population __under___ the age of 35 , the country has the world’s
largest pool of young people but is lagging competitively because of a gap in employer
expectations and realities.

A recent _survey___ of 150 Indian companies by the __federation__ of Indian

Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the World Bank _revealed_____ed that 64 per
cent of Indian employers are _somewhat_ to not-at-all satisfied with the quality of
engineering graduate skills , which most notably include English language skills.

Speaking at the launch of the report , Nandan Nilekani , a co-founder of Infosys , an

Indian IT company , ___highlighted______ed the great __potential_______ for the
_econonomy______ in __sectors____s such as IT because its huge youth population is
set to be the largest in the world in a few _decades_____s .

But he also warned that this demographic dividend could turn into a demographic
disaster if English-language education is not citedfeatured__d more prominently in
India’s development plan.

The success of India’s IT _sector_____ has shown young Indians that the lack of English
means a lack of _access_____ to opportunity , Mr Nilekani said. The British Council
study _revealscites___s government figures to show that a big shift_ from public
schools to private schools in India may be because parents are _aware____ of the
importance of an English-medium education. The 2009 _annual?_____ State Education
Report says 26 per cent of children in rural __areas__s attend private school , a 9.6
_percentage__ point increase since 2005.

Whether the Chinese population will surpass India’s number of English speakers as a
___percentage_______ of the population remains difficult to determine , as reports show
progress in some _sectors_____s and not in others. For example , the bulk?____ of
China’s growing peacekeeping mission , which reflects its desire to become a big power ,

economic over pu

lacks one necessity : good English skills.

Onderkant formulier