Korean Language added as foreign language in National Education Policy 2020; Mandarin dropped 

NEW DELHI: In the new National Education Policy Indian government has included the Korean language at the secondary level among the foreign languages to be offered to Indian students. Apart from Korean, other foreign languages that will be offered are Japanese, Thai, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.

The government has also pointed out that foreign language vocabulary should be updated in the textbooks and other printing materials. The suggesting foreign languages are Korean, English, French, German, Hebrew, and Japanese for this.  The new policy will replace the existing policy that was formulated in 1986. This revision has come after 28 years.

However, the Chinese language, also known as Mandarin doesn’t find mention in the NEP this year because of the very evident reason for ongoing border tension between India and China at the Line of Actual Control.

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The Korean Language was not recommended as a foreign language for the secondary level in the first draft by the National Education Policy preparation committee in 2019. The Embassy of the Republic of Korea to India and the Korean Cultural Centre India suggested the necessity of the Korean language to the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Human Resource Development in the process of collecting opinions.

Korean Cultural Centre India has consistently put its effort into building up the base for Korean language subject adaption since its foundation, 13^th December 2012. Under this process, the Korean Cultural Center now has MOU with 105 schools where the center is providing Korean culture experience and Korean language demonstration classes.

In 2015, the Korean language demonstration class started with 2 schools only and now it has 17 schools where 3 schools have already accepted the Korean language as the school`s regular subject. This was even before the National Education Policy announcement.

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Shin Bong-kil, the ambassador of the Republic of Korea to India said ‘I think the Indian government`s decision about adding Korean as a foreign language for secondary level can be considered as one of the symbolic measures to focus on the importance of India-Korea relations.

Kim Kum-pyoung, the director of Korean Cultural Centre India said we plan to intensively foster Korean language teachers to deal with Korean language demands in India actively and will do hard works for making the Korean language adapted as a regular subject in Indian National academic aptitude test for university admission.

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Currently, Korean Culture Centre India is preparing to open Korean Language Teacher Training Course with 23 Korean language teacher candidates, who are selected for a 15-week intensive course which will run from 17^th August to 24^th December. These Indian teachers will be then sent to schools and colleges.  And KCCI is opening 15 weeks online free hobby class for the Korean language from 18th August.