By Mr. Rahul K Patwardhan, CEO
NIIT Limited, a global leader in skills & talent development
New Delhi, February 15, 2016: Online education is a fast growing global growth arena, both in formal education and vocational training. We hope that the government will introduce measures to ensure a level playing field for the highly regulated Indian online education and training companies against the much larger funded global players who are entering the Indian market aggressively, in an unregulated manner as far as Indian taxation regime is concerned.
Further, we hope that the Finance Minister will announce specific measures in the Union Budget to help make education and skilling more affordable to the masses. Skill India and Digital India are two key and highly ambitious initiatives of Government of India, and in the forthcoming budget we expect specific Indirect tax rebates for the companies and its partners who are working towards making these initiatives a success. Government has set an ambitious target of skilling 500 million people by 2022. In a country where less than 4% of the population are formally skilled, FM needs to substantially increase fund allocation to the sector to draw youth to the skilling programmes. FM should also spell out specific incentives and policy framework to boost the start-up sector by announcing tax rebate and allocating more funds for the development of the sector.
GST is another much awaited Indirect tax reform, which will boost the economy. We are expecting a firm roadmap from the Government for its implementation. We also hope there would be changes in the Income Tax policy frame that will allow us to get quick refund for the excess taxes paid.
About NIIT
Established in 1981, NIIT Limited, a global leader in Skills and Talent Development, offers multi-disciplinary learning management and training delivery solutions to corporations, institutions, and individuals in over 40 countries. NIIT has three main lines of business across the globe- Corporate Learning Group, Skills and Careers Group, and School Learning Group.
NIIT's Corporate Learning Group (CLG) offers Managed Training Services (MTS) to market-leading companies in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. The comprehensive suite of Managed Training Services includes custom Curriculum Design and Content Development, Learning Administration, Learning Delivery, Strategic Sourcing, Learning Technology, and Advisory Services. With a team of some of the world's finest learning professionals, NIIT is dedicated to helping customers increase the business value of learning and development (L&D). Built on the sound principles of 'Running Training like a Business', NIIT's Managed Training Services and best-in-class training processes enable customers to align business goals with L&D, reduce costs, realise measurable value, benefit from rock-solid operations, and increase business impact.
NIIT's Skills and Careers Group (SNC) delivers a diverse range of learning and talent development programs to millions of individual and corporate learners in areas including Banking, Finance & Insurance, Soft Skills, Business Process Excellence, Retail Sales Enablement, Management Education, Multi-Sectoral Vocational Skills, Digital Media Marketing, and new-age IT. These programs are delivered through a hybrid combination of the 'Cloud Campus' online platform, satellite-based 'Synchronous Learning Technology' and a physical network of hundreds of learning centers in India, China, and select markets in Asia & Africa. The flagship multi-disciplinary course offerings include the industry-endorsed RevGNIIT program and a set of Post Graduate Programs for students from different streams, apart from a wide range of specialist short duration programs.
To further strengthen its SNC portfolio in India, NIIT has tied up with industry majors like ICICI Bank for NIIT Institute of Finance Banking Insurance& Training Limited, IFBI; leading business schools in India for NIIT Imperia; Genpact for NIIT Uniqua; and a joint venture with NSDC for NIIT YuvaJyoti Limited. Besides this, for the China market, NIIT has tied up with governments and software parks in Guian, Chongqing, Wuxi, Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhangjiagang, Haikou and Dafeng, for state-of-the-art public-private partnership centres.
Recently NIIT has introduced -
StackRouteTM, an initiative to produce the world's best full stack programmers. StackRouteTM aims to create multi-skilled, and multi-disciplinary programmers who can become key members of high-performance teams in top notch product engineering companies, start-ups, and IT firms. Further the company has also launched
NIIT.tv – a digital learning initiative that brings skilling from NIIT classrooms to every digitally connected Indian, for free, at any time and place of their choice. A disruptive innovation by NIIT for the education space. NIIT.tv will deliver for the very first time, skill-based live courses as well as on-demand courses to the masses, through the digital medium.
As NIIT's wholly owned subsidiary for its K-12 school learning initiative -
MindChampion Learning Systems Limited, is providing technology based learning to around 2,000 private schools across India, reaching out to more than a million students. The futuristic NIIT nGuru range of learning solutions for schools comprises Interactive Classrooms with digital content, technology-driven Math Lab, IT Wizard programs and Quick School - an Education Resource Planning software.
As the Most Trusted Brand in India for 3rd year in a row (Brand Trust Report, 2015), NIIT's learning and talent development solutions, continue to receive widespread recognition globally. NIIT has been named among the Top 20 Training Outsourcing Companies for the past seven consecutive years by Training Industry, Inc. USA. Further, leading Indian ICT journal Dataquest has conferred upon NIIT the 'Top Training Company' award successively for the past 20 years, since the inception of this category. NIIT YuvaJyoti Ltd was recognized as the Best Vocational Education and Skill Development initiative at the World Education Summit, 2014.
For media queries, please contact:
Prateek Chatterjee
Vice President,
Corporate Communications & Marketing, NIIT Limited
Ph: (Cell) +91 9910201085, (Dir) +91 124 4293041
Email:
prateek.chatterjee@niit.com
Swati Sharma
Corporate Communications & Marketing, NIIT Limited
Ph: (Cell) +91 9582078623, (Dir) +91 124 4293042
Email:
swati.1.sharma@niit.com
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