Genpact-NASSCOM to jointy address India\'s skills gap

Genpact Limited, a global leader in designing, transforming, and running intelligent business operations, today announced that it is signing an MOU with the NASSCOM Foundation and IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council NASSCOM to jointly create and launch Reach Higher, a vocational skill-building programme to align with the Government of India's aspiration to train 150 million people by 2022.

This is a strategic part of Genpact's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts to generate sustainable impact through continuous training and employability for the underserved community with NASSCOM Foundation taking the responsibility of the overall monitoring and evaluation while the NASSCOM Sector Skills Council will be responsible for content validation and certification.

Delivered through identified vocational training companies - NIIT and Global Talent Track (GTT), the program will equip aspirants with skills in specialized areas such as finance andaccounting, banking, and analytics and will also train them in job-related essentials such as English communication, soft skills and computer literacy. Over time, the plan is to include telecom and retail domain skills as well. The program will be fully sponsored by Genpact, at no cost to the aspirants, and will be driven through both on-campus and off-campus models across multiple cities.

Announcing the signing of the MoU, Amit Aggarwal, Global CSR Leader, Genpact said, "This model addresses the growing skills gap that is adding to the challenge of unemployment in India. Using our CSR resources to help under-served youth become job ready is a strategic effort to generate sustainable impact through continuous training."

"IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council NASSCOM (SSC NASSCOM) along with the Genpact, NASSCOM Foundation and some of the leading training providers have come together to drive a powerful skill development initiative to create a skills ready workforce for the future. Through this initiative, we intend to leverage the capabilities of our partners to positively impact the ecosystem and create success stories of individuals from across communities in India," said Dr Sandhya Chintala, Executive Director, SSC NASSCOM & Vice President, NASSCOM.

Encouraging more companies to develop their skills training programs on the lines of Reach Higher, Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM Foundationsaid, "Programs like Reach Higher are as fundamental as they are aspirational to the overall growth of India, helping the youth from the underserved communities get employment- ready while also giving a chance to the companies across the country to create a trained pool of individuals."