SL first to adopt British Council’s ‘Aptis for Teachers’
View(s):The British Council has locally introduced a new English language assessment tool for companies and education institutions to evaluate the level of proficiency of employees, job seekers, students and even teachers. In addition, it also helps to identify areas requiring training for improvement.
This tool, Aptis, developed and owned by the British Council, has been launched in Sri Lanka to “support the country’s aspirations to invest in human capital and to increase the overall levels of English language in the country. In view of understanding the current levels of English in the market, the British Council in Sri Lanka commissioned and conducted a benchmarking exercise across six industries to foster a framework for English language development work.
This exercise used representative companies from six different industries: Banking, Telecommunications, Tourism and Hospitality, Manufacturing and Retail, Insurance, and BPO, KPO and IT. The focus of the exercise was to share information on the level of English required by specific job roles across these industries. This information when combined with assessment and training helps industries in Sri Lanka to develop their human capital effectively”, according to a statement.
The organisation also noted that it had “conducted an English language forum which was attended by over 70 participants from the public, private, and NGO sectors across all industries. The forum discussed the role of English language and its importance for a country, for industries, for individuals, and how a structured approach can be taken for English language development work. Within this mandate, the discussion also looked at how assessment plays a critical role in setting that structure, and the relevance of Aptis”.
It also revealed that “an additional variant of Aptis has been developed – Aptis for Teachers. Sri Lanka has been quick to recognise its benefit with an institution being the first globally to select it as a tool to assess and develop its pool of teachers across the island”.
(JH)