Refresher courses in fine arts and ‘Sanskrit and philosophy,' were conducted for the first time at Academic Staff College of Bharathidasan University, benefitting 50 teachers from all over the country.
Teachers handling fine arts in higher educational institutions are required to undergo one orientation and two refresher courses. The course of 20 days duration was conducted with a multidisciplinary approach to cover various aspects, including dance, musical instruments, and music, besides paintings, sculpture, and multimedia. Contents in Sangam literature relevant to fine arts were also handled during the course, Sr. Margaret Bastin, course coordinator for fine arts, said. The course served the purpose of igniting the minds of the participants to teach fine arts with renewed vigour, Sr. Margaret said, assuring younger generation that there was bright career scope in fine arts. Participants of the refresher course in ‘Sanskrit and philosophy' of a similar duration underwent sessions on comparison between Sanskrit and Tamil literature, vedic and non-vedic system of Indian philosophy, and Saiva Siddantham and Semmoli Tamil. They were offered insights into the methods of identifying research areas from ancient publications, according to T.N. Aravamudhan, course coordinator and principal, Rajahs College of Sanskrit and Tamil Studies. Releasing the course materials along with Vice-Chancellor of Bharathidasan University K. Meena, the managing director and chief executive officer of City Union Bank, K.Kamakoti, termed Sanskrit a traditional knowledge bank, and called for its stronger connection to the academia. Ms. Meena said the two refresher courses are inclusive of the 18 UGC-sponsored courses – 11 refresher, five orientation and two short-term courses – that the university has planned this year. The Vice-Chancellor expressed readiness to enable online access to the course materials. A.Singaravelu, director in-charge, Academic Staff College, addressed the participants.
