Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) to be conducted in Mizoram

NASSCOM, the premier trade body and ‘voice’ of the IT software and service industry in India, today announced the rollout of the NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC) in Mizoram, in association with the Development of North Eastern Region (DONER). Mizoram will be the first state in the North Eastern region to administer the NAC program and administer the test on November 17-18, and will be followed by Nagaland in December.

NASSCOM had announced its plans to conduct the NAC test in the north eastern region earlier this year in July through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ministry of DONER for the rollout of NAC in the region. As part of this initiative, NASSCOM aims to conduct NAC test amongst 20,000 students across eight states.

Talking about the rollout, Ms. Sangeeta Gupta, Vice President, NASSCOM said “The North Eastern region has well educated, well spoken and talented manpower pool which makes it an attractive destination for ITES-BPO sector. Not only this, the region also has the potential to become next BPO hub given the availability of human resources and progressive government policies. In line with this, NASSCOM has partnered with DONER to channelize this talented pool of human power to maximise the benefits of this booming sector”.

“With NAC, we are confident that it will become a means of bringing out the human resource potential of North Eastern India”, she added.

Eligibility criteria for NAC


Pursuing final year UG

Graduate (in the year 2005 and later)
Test centers where NAC will be administered



ITEDP Center - Khatla, Aizawl

ICT Office, Secretariat Block 'A', Aizawl

DOEACC Center- Zuangtui, Aizawl
NAC assessment details

Registration form to be submitted to DIT [Last Date: 10 Nov 07]

Availability of NAC Admission Card/Hall Ticket on website or through DIT [Start Date: 10 Nov 07]

NAC Assessment [Date: 17-18 Nov 07]
Details available at
www.nac.nasscom.in/web/Mizoram.aspx?State=Mizoram

The Indian BPO sector is on a high growth path registering growth of 33.5% per cent to contribute USD 8.4 billion to the total software and services exports of USD 31.4 billion in FY 07. According to the NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005, India could face a possibly face shortage of employable workforce in the next decade, particularly in ITES-BPO industry, unless corrective measures are put in place urgently. Currently, only about 25% of technical graduates and 10-15% of general college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO industries, respectively. As countries from around the world enter the offshore market, it is necessary that India must improve the quality and skills of its workforce.

It is with this background, NASSCOM, with active participation of ITES-BPO industry players, designed NAC, a national assessment and certification program, which is aimed at creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent by transforming the "trainable" workforce into an "employable workforce”.

Key benefits of NAC

1) 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
2) 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
3) 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
4) 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
5) 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

Background about NAC
NASSCOM has been working with Indian ITES-BPO industry to create a national assessment and certification program – NAC. 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.

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. 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.

The target audience are 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.

Source: prdomain.com