VIJAYAWADA: HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao re-launched website of Paatasala, a certified non-profit and independent organisation, to extend the four-year-long Telugu course to NRIs living in the United States (US). The education department has started the course and the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has designed the syllabus.
The Telugu course for children above five years living in the US has been running for the past four years and was named as Telugu Paluku. After completing the four-year course in Telugu, the students would get a certificate from the education department of the State.
E Venkat, State Education department advisor, said, “It has been a great initiative by Paatasala to offer a Telugu course and encourage children overseas.”The classes for the course will be held twice a week — Saturday and Sunday — and the examinations will be held conducted at end of the year. Presently in the US, Telugu classes are running in over 20 centres with an average strength of 300 to 350 children. The course fee is about $200 per annum and examination fee would be additional $35.