A New Online OET Project in India
LSI/IH Portsmouth has recently embarked on a new project in India, teaching OET exam preparation to a group of 20 Indian nurses, who on completion of the course, and successfully passing the OET exam, will subsequently undergo further specialist training and then come on to work as nurses in the NHS in the UK.
LSI/IH Portsmouth, along with partners West London College and Swoosh, were selected to run a pilot project over three months between January and March 2021.
The nurses, most of whom are juggling shifts in hospitals in different parts of India with the OET course, have classes in the evening after work, with each different day focusing on one of the skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) required for the exam.
“It’s a really exciting project, and we as teachers all feel a big sense of responsibility to help the nurses to pass the exam, and achieve their ambitions to come and work in the UK. At the same time, we know the NHS is facing a large shortage of nurses, so it’s great to be able to contribute in a small way to reducing that shortage by enabling the students in our class to come and work here”, says Lewis Richards, Director of Studies at LSI/IH Portsmouth, and one of the OET teachers on the course.
The project is run through Health Education England, the education arm of the NHS, and if successful will be rolled out in different parts of India. “We were delighted to be chosen to run this pilot project”, says Lewis, “and I think one of the main reason is our track record of teaching OET at LSI/IH Portsmouth. We became a premium provider for OET classes at the end of 2019, meaning that we our classes have been endorsed by OET as being of very high quality, and we’ve been running OET preparation courses for several years now.”
LSI/IH Portsmouth is also an official test centre for the OET exam, so the school has the experience of running tests as well. “Something that is wonderful about this course”, says Rebecca Blakey, who also teaching on the course, “is the level of motivation of the nurses. They are incredibly keen and interested, and it’s an absolute pleasure to help them to achieve such a big step in their careers.”
June – we caught up with one of our students, Aneesh, after he received his successful results. You can see Aneesh talking to Lewis Richards here about his experience on our online OET preparation course and his results in the OET test:
