DPS, Indraprastha University to teach Japanese language

NEW DELHI: Though it has set its aim at training of about 30,000 Indians in the Japanese language annually in five years' time, Japan is finding meeting the target tough in view of the threat of "poaching" by multinational companies who lure away language-proficient professionals.

According to a senior Japanese Embassy official here, Toshio Yamamoto, an average of about 5,300 people in India learn Japanese every year, but most of them are in the private sector who would rather work with multinational companies than take up the job of teaching, for which there is a tremendous need at present.

"We need to create a pool of teachers to meet the target. While in China about 4 lakh people learn Japanese every year, even in Sri Lanka the figure is higher than in India at around 10,000 students,'' says Mr Yamamoto, adding that to promote the language now cooperation is being sought from Delhi Public School Society and the Delhi-based Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

While DPS schools would train their junior English teachers in Japanese for teaching their students from Class VI onward, he says, the Indraprastha University has offered to start the language programme at 16 of its 80 colleges to begin with.

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/26/stories/2006022614430300.htm