British Council's initiative to develop communication skills in West Bengal

The West Bengal government invited the British Council to organise a training programme on Communicative English for 34 West Bengal Civil Service (Executive batch) officials, which ran from May 8 – 24, 2019. The course concluded with a certificate distribution and valedictory ceremony, attended by Chandan Sinha, Director General, Administrative Training Institute, Government of West Bengal and Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti, Director, British Council, East and Northeast India. The course focused on developing the spoken English, email writing and report writing skills of the West Bengal Civil Services Executive Officers.

Till date, the British Council has already helped train 228 Executive Officers of the West Bengal Civil Services, West Bengal Accounts and Audit Services and West Bengal Revenue Services to enhance their communicative English skills. Through these and other initiatives, the British Council is supporting the Chief Minister's vision of making West Bengal a hub of knowledge and education and helping to create a systemic change.

The British Council has supported the vision of the Government of West Bengal to improve young people's access to education and help improve communications in English. In July 2018, British Council signed an overarching MoU with the Government of West Bengal, on with a focus on English language training across the whole school and higher education system, linked to employability; research collaboration and capacity building in higher education and cultural collaborations between the UK and West Bengal with a focus on skills and tourism. The MoU also sought to enable student and academic partnerships and mobility between universities and support international research collaboration.

Chandan Sinha Director General, Administrative Training Institute, Government of West Bengal said "We are very pleased to have partnered with the British Council to engage our Executive Officers in professional development opportunities. The government is keen to develop the communication skills and confidence of our officers in order to be able to provide better services for the people of West Bengal and position the state for national and international opportunities."

Debanjan Chakrabarti, Director East and Northeast India, British Council said, "We are delighted to be working with the government of West Bengal to deliver this training for WBCS Executive Officers. The Memorandum of Understanding we signed in the presence of CM Mamata Banerjee aims to further educational and cultural cooperation between Britain and Bengal. This training is part of our ongoing effort to work with state governments to create systemic change and support the vision of making West Bengal a hub of knowledge industries and education in the entire East and Northeast India and beyond, in the ASEAN region."