Few Takers for Japanese at HSC level (Pune)

PUNE: The Maharashtra state board for secondary and higher secondary education's move to introduce Japanese language at the higher secondary certificate (HSC, Class XII) level, has met with a rather lukewarm response. Barely 14 students from a solitary institution in Mumbai will appear for the first Japanese paper as part of the HSC exam which begins from February 28.

The paper is scheduled for 11 am to 2 pm on March 14. Board chairperson Vijaysheela Sardesai confirmed the figure while speaking to TOI on Friday evening. "This is the first year when the test for Japanese will be part of the overall exam schedule. We hope more students will add to Japanese studies at the junior college level (Class XI and XII) in the years to follow," she said.

What comes as a surprise is the fact that no academic institution in Pune — which accounts for India's largest pool of Japanese learners at the higher education level — opted for the subject despite the immense career potential offered by Japanese language in the emerging global economy.

On an annual basis, 2,600 people from Pune take Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) for different levels of proficiency. The city has 22 amateur as well as professional bodies and individual tutors for Japanese.

The Japanese Students' Services Organisation (Jasso), a body under Japan's ministry of education, looks at Pune as a crucial base for promoting Japanese language. All this, considering that the demand for Japanese language interpreters and teachers, especially at the Nikkyu level of conversation skill, is high in the infotech and management sectors. The response from junior colleges to the board's initiative is surprising in this context.

The state education board introduced Japanese subject at the junior college level in 2006-07 with a specific objective of presenting the students an opportunity to catch up with the language at an early age. Former board chairman Vasant Kalpande, under whose tenure the initiative was taken, explained, "Japanese companies are fast emerging at the global stage.

Japanese investment in India has been on the rise. Keeping this in view, we worked on introducing the language at junior college level". Prior to Japanese, the board had introduced French, German, Persian, Russian and Arabic. "The Japanese consulate in Mumbai offered help in enabling the state board prepare the syllabus, reference material and text books," said Kalpande.

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