MUMBAI: The traditional image of finishing schools is of the Swiss Alps, where elegant young ladies from well-to-do families learn to walk, talk and make conversation before entering polite society, AFP reported.

Now India is looking to the model for the three million or so graduates it produces every year to refine the skills they need to succeed in business and give the country a sharper edge in the global marketplace.

The ‘finishing schools’ in Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore are to open later this year, as part of a two-million-dollar project by the Indian School of Integrated Learning (ISIL) and British training firm Speak First.

‘The finishing school is taking graduates and anyone else of that academic level through a programme which will give them all the skills that a business could possibly want,’ Speak First’s Amanda Vickers said.

‘A lot of people (in India) are academically really well qualified, very bright and intelligent, all the things that most businesses want. But where there is a gap is in the skills that you need to succeed in business.’

But both Vickers, Speak First’s managing director, and ISIL chairman Vijay Moza said Indian employees could do better when it comes to ‘soft skills.’

‘Soft skills training has huge potential but what’s more important is that we have to put all these things together. By 2020 India is going to be a superpower with China and the US,’ said Moza.