Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Now, everybody can learn Tamil with ease

The Hindu: Madurai: Tuesday, 26 August 2014.
It is a well-known fact that Madurai, a city with a recorded history dating back to the third century B.C., had been the seat of development of ancient Tamil literature. But what many may not know is that even today, it is the institutions and individuals here who have been taking unrelenting efforts to popularise the classical language and spread it across the country and beyond.
After sending petitions after petitions to various government officials for over three years now, Bharathiyar Thinkers Forum, a private association of like-minded individuals here, has finally succeeded in making the Tamil University in Thanjavur prepare and submit a proposal to the State government for teaching Tamil to non-Tamil speaking people through correspondence courses.
“Tamil is one of the longest surviving languages in the world and it is evident from the discovery of a 2,200-year-old inscription on Samanamalai, a hillock near here. Yet, what is shocking is that till today there is no State-sponsored correspondence course to teach the language to non-Tamil speakers in the country and also abroad through their mother tongue,” says R. Lakshminarayanan, secretary of the forum.
On the other hand, the Central Hindi Directorate in New Delhi has been conducting such correspondence courses in Hindi for non-Hindi speaking Indians at a nominal fee of Rs.50 for certificate and diploma courses, and Rs.200 for an Advance Diploma course taught over a year. The courses are conducted through English, Tamil, Malayalam and Bangla and offered to foreigners and non-resident Indians too.
Enthused by efforts taken by the Centre to impart knowledge of Hindi among non-Hindi speakers, the forum sent an application, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, to the Tamil Development Department of the State government on August 12, 2011, and wanted to know if it would take steps to teach Tamil through correspondence courses as was being done by the Hindi Directorate.
Replying to it, the Public Information Officer (PIO) of Tamil Development Department informed the forum that its application had been transferred to School Education Department since the subject fell within the latter’s purview. A month later, the PIO of School Education Department intimated the forum that the application had been re-transferred to Tamil Development Department.
On October 27, 2011, the application was transferred once again and this time to Higher Education Department on the ground that it was in charge of conducting correspondence courses. Despite the shuttling of the application from department to the other, the forum pursued the matter relentlessly. It also made a representation to the Chief Secretary on March 16, 2013. It was forwarded to the Directorate of Tamil Development and the Tamil University for considering the request made by the forum and submitting a report to the government.
Standard reply
Subsequent applications made by the forum under the RTI Act, wanting to know the status of its representation, evoked a standard reply that the request was under active consideration.
It was only on August 18 this year that the Tamil University revealed that it had sent a detailed proposal to the State government, through the Tamil Development Director, on May 19 seeking allocation of Rs.37.36 lakh for starting a certificate course with a duration of six months and a diploma course with a duration of one year to teach Tamil to non-Tamils.
Welcoming the proposal, Mr. Lakshminarayanan stresses that the State government, which allocated Rs.77.70 lakh in 2012 for translating Thirukkural and poems of Subramania Bharathi and Bharathidasan in Mandarin, should show similar interest in allocating funds required for teaching Tamil to all those who are genuinely interested in learning the language.
“Use AV materials”
“The Tamil University should make sure that the language is taught effectively through audio-visual materials too. The courses should be designed in a way that they inspire the confidence of people wanting to learn Tamil. After all, it was no less a personality than Mahatma Gandhi who wanted even all Indians to learn Tamil and it is the State government’s responsibility to fulfil his wish,” he says.