The Hindu : New Delhi News : JNU team to take part in Confucius Institute meet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 11, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

JNU team to take part in Confucius Institute meet

Staff Reporter

The institute based in Beijing promotes Chinese literature

NEW DELHI: Even as Jawaharlal Nehru University here awaits establishment of a Confucius Institute on its campus, a JNU delegation will take part in the second International Confucius Institute Conference in China later this year.

The delegation, comprising the Dean of the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Varyam Singh, and the Chairperson of the Centre for Chinese and South East Asian Studies, Hemant Adlakha, will visit Beijing for the three-day event, according to Vice-Chancellor B. B. Bhattacharya, who might not attend the event himself because of prior commitments.

The first such conference last year attracted a number of delegates from different countries. Confucius Institute is a non-profit public institute in Beijing with a mission to promote Chinese literature, language and culture across the world. It has opened many such institutes in a lot of countries.

Packaging of courses

Among other things, the delegation will discuss the packaging of the courses that will be offered at the Confucius Institute of Jawaharlal Nehru University (CIJ). This will help the apex body in Beijing to know the needs of Indian students, researchers and other people and the courses will be designed to suit them.Proposed by the Chinese Ministry of Education, the first agreement regarding CIJ was signed in 2005. Early this year, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Peiking University – which is JNU’s counterpart in the project for setting up CIJ on the campus – visited the University to sign other agreements.

“We are trying our best to make CIJ functional by the next academic year. We will organise an international seminar at the time of its inauguration. We will also install a modern, state-of-the-art, multi-media Chinese language laboratory that will be housed at the new language laboratory complex,” said Prof. Singh.

A five-member standing committee will be constituted for overseeing the overall policy matters of the Institute, while a three-member committee will run its day-to-day affairs. “Initially the Confucius Institute in China will send their two faculty members for two years. Our teachers would help them as and when required. CIJ will be open to others as well,” said Dr. Adlakha.

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