Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe had first discussed the idea in the sidelines of Japan-India summit meeting in September 2017.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) will be the launchpad for a bilateral project between the Narendra Modi government and its Japanese counterpart for "expanding" Japanese language education in India.
The country's first Japanese Language Teacher Training Centre (JLTTC) will be inaugurated by Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd) VK Singh at the University on July 23.
The governments of India and Japan have joined hands to train 1,000 Japanese language teachers and launch courses in the language in as many as 100 educational institutions across the country over the next five years. "There have been demands for such an initiative for a very long time. Both the governments have now making serious efforts and as a result first such centre is going to be launched at JNU's Human Resource Development Center," said Ashok Chawla, advisor (Japan), Union Ministry of External Affairs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe had first discussed the idea in the sidelines of Japan-India summit meeting in September 2017. Later, a steering committee was formed and a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) was signed between the two nations in March.
The first batch of 30 teachers, mostly newcomers, will take the 360-hour duration course titled:"Japanese Teachers Language Training Course A". Two teachers, one from each country, have been appointed to train them. The teachers will work under the Japan Foundation, a semi-government body working on promotion of the Japanese language in India.
Initially, teachers will be trained at different centres across the country and then both the governments, with the help of the Union Human Resource Development Ministry here, will launch Japanese language courses in 100 educational institutions. "Through this initiative, we will train teachers who can further train students in higher education institution and technical colleges. We have already started receiving applications from universities. However, nothing has been finalised on it so far," Chawla said.
According to Kenko Sone, economic minister, Embassy of Japan, the country is aiming to engage Indians beyond tourism. "The number of Japanese companies investing in India has gone up in the last few years. There is a huge demand for trained individuals who can bridge the language barrier between them and their employees," he said.
As per the data collected by the Japan Foundation in 2015, as many as 24,000 people studying Japanese in India. "We conduct these surveys every three years. There has been a 20 per cent rise in the number of people who take Japanese Language Proficiency Test in the last consecutive surveys," said Kaoru Miyamoto, Director General of the Foundation.
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