Kochi: The organisers of the Occupational English Test (OET) exuded confidence that the recruitment in the UK’s National Health Services (NHS) will pick up momentum in a few months, increasing the fortunes of job aspirants from India.

Amit Upadhyay, OET’s regional director South Asia, told Onmanorama that NHS recruitments, which many Keralite pin hopes on, are likely to resume by the first half of the next year.

“While the recruitment at NHS is currently not happening, what we are hearing, and this is a broad level timeline, is that before the end of first quarter of the next year, NHS would start recruiting from India again. That is a good piece of news coming in. Also the demand for healthcare professionals across the world currently remains very strong, especially on the back of the pandemic that we faced in 2020, the increase in chronic illnesses across the world, and also ageing populations across all the major economies in the world. There is a very strong demand for nurses, aged care professionals and also medical professionals,” he said during his visit to Kochi.

He admitted that the dip in NHS recruitment has had an impact on the number of OET tests being taken in the country.

He said, apart from the UK, the OET has got a wide recognition across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. “OET is not just for UK but for other pathways as well. We're going to try and bring a lot more messaging so that test takers and the private language schools and the nursing colleges would be aware of which other pathways and countries candidates can use OET for,” he said.

Asked about the concerns raised by previous incidents of OET exam frauds, Upadhyay said a number of steps have been taken to make sure that our test is absolutely secure.

“We had acknowledged that we had an incident in Chandigarh and that single incident was very well handled and immediately addressed. We immediately closed the test centre down so that the fraudulent activity cannot happen at that test centre. There are a number of measures and operational efficiencies that have been built in to make the test more robust, secure and ensure that malpractice cannot happen again at any of our other test centres. We have also taken cognizance of all the candidates who were impacted as a result of that test centre and the fraudulent activity. We have contacted each one of those candidates and helped them reset the examination in a more secure environment so that they could pursue their opportunities in their professional lives,” he said.

OET has 15 test centres in Kerala, with a total of 37 test centres across India. In 2023, more than 2,20,000 OET tests were conducted globally. Within India, more than 80% of OET takers are from Kerala.