The Gujarat University will be offering 21 foreign language courses for the first time. The courses will be launched in the first week of September and will be offered as per international standards.
The University has tied up with HK School of Foreign Languages as a knowledge partner, and will be offering courses in various languages including Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Greek, Dutch, Mandarin, Slovak, etc., apart from the common French, Spanish, German and Chinese.
Commenting on the same, Dr Adithya Yagnik, Head, Academics at HK School of Foreign Languages, said: "These will be two months diploma programmes, up to high level in each language set as per international norms. The reason is that a lot of developing countries have opportunities and have opened up their doors in terms of student visas. If we equip students with such langauges, it will help them in their career."
"With the city gaining the status of world heritage city, we need professional multi-linguistic tour guides as well. We also need interpreters, hence these languages will help students opening up career opportunities for them," Yagnik added.
Himanshu Pandya, Vice-chancellor, Gujarat University, said: "We will soon be launching courses in 21 foreign languages. This will be the first time that a university in Gujarat will be offering such courses, but the idea is not to restrict ourselves only with languages like German and French."
Lauding the decision of the University, linguist expert and Chairman of People's Linguist Survey of India, Ganesh Devy, said: "The University will do good for the country if they start teaching uncommon languages here. We as Indians are still unaware of many languages spoken by our neighbouring countries — like Myanmar, China, Afghanistan or further East."
He added: "It is high time that we start teaching such languages that are spoken in Holland, Norway, Sweden, etc., as we have business relations with all those countries.
From Surat, many businessmen go to North Europe, but they find it difficult to do business in Netherlands and Belgium, which is doing very well in diamonds. I believe each and every University should start imparting courses in uncommon languages."
JOINING HANDS
Gujarat University has tied up with HK School of Foreign Languages as a knowledge partner.
