Germany and India to Promote Each Other’s Languages
Germany and India Signed a Declaration to Support the Promotion of Each Other’s Languages
October 07th, 2015
Germany and India represented by the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani have put to rest the recent controversy over the teaching of German language in Indian schools. The two countries reached an agreement for a long-term partnership for education and research.
Signing the joint declaration of intent, Human Resource Development Minister Irani agreed to promote pedagogical training in German as a foreign language in Indian schools, while German Foreign Affairs Minister Steinmeier assured promotion of four modern Indian languages in Germany in return.
Sources in the Indian Ministry said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed between the HRD ministry and Goethe Institut, where the details of the partnership will be worked out. "The MoU will be signed in the next few months. The two sides are discussing it now” the source said. The same Indian HRD officials declared for the press that: "German can be taught as an additional foreign language […] as per India's national education policy. It will mean that German cannot be a third language but can be taken as an additional subject. A third language has to be any Indian language codified by Schedule VIII of the Constitution."
An agency will be identified for the teaching of modern Indian languages in Germany and a separate memorandum of understanding will be signed between the two countries for the implementation of this. Officials in the HRD said instead of emphasizing only Sanskrit, Germany has agreed to teach four modern Indian languages - Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam - on an optional basis.
In the wider frame of the pact, signed for bilateral cooperation in the field of higher education, the University Grants Commission and German Academic Exchange service will also develop a road map for partnership between Indian and German higher educational institutions to implement various projects including the improvement of the overall quality of teaching and research between 2016 and 2022. Official sources have declared that both India and Germany will provide a total of 3.5 million EUR to fund these projects and their implementation in the first four years.
References and Links
- http://www.deccanherald.com/content/504746/germany-help-improve-teaching.html http://www.deccanherald.com/content/504746/germany-help-improve-teaching.html
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