If Indian Govt helps financially, we can keep Hindi language courses: Busan University
The Korean Embassy in India and the Indian Embassy in Korea, have contacted BUFS on this issue. BUFS says the concerns shown by them would be taken care of while deciding the new curriculum, which will be ‘balanced’.
ACN EXCLUSIVE:
SEOUL: In the bull’s eye for its plans to reduce Hindi language courses in the name of accommodating other Indian studies in its new curriculum, the Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS), South Korea has said that it can continue with the Hindi language courses if the Indian government cooperates and offers help financially.
BUFS has said that since its financial resources are limited, it cannot afford to continue with Hindi language courses. It also indicated that the new curriculum would be a ‘balanced’ one.
While speaking with Asian Community News (ACN) Network from Busan over the phone, Prof. Soon-Chul Lee, Indian Business and Area Studies, BUFS, said India was one of the fastest-growing economies of the world, the university wanted to take advantage of it and introduce more Indian studies like its history, culture, and sociology.
“We have changed the education policy all over the universities. As regards the Hindi language course being reduced, we understand that the economic growth of India is faster than any other country lately, and it’s (one of the) largest economies in the world. And India and Korea have the target to take their bilateral trade to USD 50 billion by 2030. We need cooperation from India in economic growth,” said Prof. Lee who teaches Economics Major at BUFS.
University’s decision has caused widespread resentment not only amongst the Indian community but also the Korean students pursuing careers in Hindi language teaching and other related studies in South Korea, India, and other parts of the world. If this private university goes its way, the Hindi language courses will come to almost closure from the next session at BUFS where Hindi is being taught for 37 years.
“At present, we are teaching 11 Hindi courses, but we need 4 or 5 courses only. We want to teach Indian studies like history, culture, and sociology and we don’t need Hindi only as we want to go to a variety of Indian studies. And if we continue with the present structure of Hindi, we have to reduce other fields like Indian history, culture, etc.”
Prof. Lee said the university wanted a healthy and strong curriculum for contributing to the two country’s relationship.
Related article: BUFS professor puts her job at stake to save Hindi language
“If the Indian government helps us set up new classes only for Hindi, we can continue with the same number of Hindi language courses. Our financial resources are pretty limited, and we cannot increase the tuition (fee) because of government policy. Therefore, we need help,” he added.
Soon, the BUFS would be informing the Indian Embassy in Seoul about its decision, he said.
When asked has the BUFS decided on the structure new curriculum, Prof. Lee said, “We haven’t announced formally the Hindi classes but our policy is to have balanced classes for the India studies. We are still discussing it. Indian Embassy also has written a letter to us on the same issue, and we are considering that too. Also, we are considering what are good ways to improve the relations between Korea and India?”
As regards the survey conducted by the BUFS in which 84% of the students voted in favor of keeping the Hindi courses in the present format, Prof. Lee, said the survey was circulated only with the students of Hindi language majors, not others. Had it been with other students, we could have got different results. That’s why we need very balanced classes. We need optimal results.”
