Korean professor puts her job at stake to save Hindi language in Korea

SEOUL: Dr. Son Yeon Woo, a Korean native and Hindi language professor at Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS) in South Korea has put her foot down against the management that is hell-bent to drop Hindi language courses from the next academic session starting March.

Dr. Son who has been teaching Hindi to Korean students at BUFS in Busan since 2018, has refused to give her consent on the restructured curriculum, which dropped Hindi language studies to almost to its closure.

It is because of her refusal to give her consent as head of the Hindi language department, the university administration has not been able to release the restructured curriculum, which it was supposed to on November 13 initially. Later the date of declaration of the new curriculum was changed to December 28 but it could not materialize as Dr. Son stuck to her stance.

The BUFS administration has been trying in vain to persuade Dr. Son to sign on the restructured curriculum since November.

“I have refused to sign on the restructured curriculum despite repeated requests by the university administration and departmental head. I don’t see any logic behind reducing Hindi language studies to almost closure when India is promoting the Korean language by introducing it into National Education Policy (NEP) 2020,” Dr. Son, Assistant Professor, Indian Language and Culture Studies, Department of Indian Studies, BUFS told Asian Community News from Busan over the phone.

Son Yeon Woo did M. A. as well as Ph. D in Hindi language from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

As per BUFS plans, the new curriculum provisions for introducing only one major instead of two – the Indian Language and culture and Indian Business Studies, on the pretext that Korean students must learn more about Indian economy, history, and other aspects and not the Hindi language as the English language is spoken more than Hindi in India.

Initially, the BUFS administration was supposed to declare the new curriculum on November 13 but it could not be done as Dr. Son had refused to offer her consent.

Later on November 20 she was called into the meeting to discuss and finalize the new curriculum but to no avail. Following this, she was not invited to the recent meeting but called separately on November 26 to put pressure on her to sign on the new curriculum. But Dr. Son stood like a rock in between the BUFA decision and the Hindi language and refused to budge to the pressure.

BUFS has been teaching the Hindi language for the last 37 years since 1983 along with other foreign languages such as Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, Myanmar, Malaysian, Indonesian, Arabic, Turkish, German, Italian, etc.

On December 24, Dr. Son also led a delegation of two assistant professors of the Hindi department of BUFS, and some Hindi learning Korean students to virtually meet the Ambassador of the Indian Embassy in Seoul to put forth the agenda.

During this interaction, the Indian ambassador to Korea Sripriya Ranganathan had offered to move the concerned Korean ministry on the matter. Surinder Bhagat, Deputy Chief of Mission, and Dr. Sonu Trivedi, Director,  Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Indian Embassy in Seoul were also present in this hour-long virtual meeting.

BUFS Assistant Professor Vijay Yadav and Assistant Professor Srijan Kumar as well as some Korean students pursuing Hindi language further up to Masters and Ph. D. were also present in the virtual meeting with the Ambassador on Thursday.

When asked what if the university administration took stern action against her and terminated her contract, Dr. Son said, “What is the point being in the job when there is no Hindi language being taught here. I am ready for any kind of eventuality.”