Languages as subjects of study need to be accorded greater importance in schools and colleges alike, say teachers.
Though they are taught in schools, the marks scored in such subjects are not taken into account while determining the cut-off mark for college admissions, prompting students to pay scant regard to languages even though they are vital for improving communication skills.
For instance, only seven colleges in the city offer Urdu as a second language, with the Presidency College being the only one to offer a major in Urdu, for which there are hardly any takers. Malayalam is also in dire straits, while Telugu and Kannada have also lost much of their sheen, says a college professor.
Teachers at government colleges say their students mostly opt for Tamil.
“Only those who study in government schools join government colleges, which usually offer only Tamil or Hindi. Not much importance is accorded to languages at the school-level. Very few students pursue languages and hence the interest in such fields is also lower,” explains N.K. Kanthasamy, the president of Tamil Nadu Government College Teachers’ Association.
N. Pasupathy, general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, blames the focus on job-oriented courses for the neglect of languages. “Every student needs communication skills. Without proficiency in languages, communication skills are impossible to acquire,” he points out.
Teachers say the government is partly to blame as it has failed to fill vacancies in language departments. They point out that although the State government has launched over 30 colleges over the past few years, it has failed to appoint adequate teachers.
“Around 15 to 20 colleges have started journalism and communication courses. This initiative, innovative as it may be, still suffers from a lack of teachers. Journalism is a language-intensive course. Despite there being 25 teaching vacancies, the Teachers Recruitment Board website shows only four or five vacancies,” says C. Pichandy, former general secretary of the Association of University Teachers.
“When starting a new course, the government should also take into consideration the faculty requirement. There are plenty of NET and Ph.D candidates for all categories and vacancies can easily be filled,” he adds.
According to him, the best way to keep a language alive is to actively engage in learning it.
“Earlier, there was an integrated department for oriental languages. For instance, Persian, Arabic and Urdu were grouped under one department. We need such departments where foreign language specialists would be part of the faculty for developing communication skills,” Prof. Pichandy says.
