New Delhi: China on Thursday welcomed the Central Board of Secondary Education's move to introduce Mandarin Chinese in all its affiliated schools and offered to help the initiative by providing training material.
"China expressed willingness to offer support for training the teachers and providing Chinese language training material," a joint statement issued after a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in New Delhi said.
The CBSE had recently announced to introduce Mandarin Chinese in class VI in all its affiliated schools from the next academic session.
The Board will conduct a training programme for teachers to make them understand the fundamentals of the pedagogy and contents shortly, CBSE officials said.
The two countries also declared establishment of a India-China outstanding college student exchange programme, the statement said.
Both the countries have also agreed to consider the finalisation of an agreement on mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas to facilitate and strengthen intercollegiate and student exchanges, it said.
According to CBSE officials, the growth of China as one the major global economies and the use of the language by a
large number of people across the globe were some of the reasons behind its introduction in the Board curriculum.
The curriculum and textbooks for the subject have already been developed, they said.
The general objectives will be to enable the learner to communicate effectively and build proficiency in the skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking in Mandarin Chinese, they said, adding that the emphasis will also be on building sensitivity and awareness regarding China's culture and traditions.
CBSE currently offers 32 languages at secondary and senior secondary level of which 12 are foreign.
Comments
0 comment