KOLLAM: Coinciding with the diamond jubilee celebrations of Kerala’s formation, Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University at Tirur in Malappuram is pressing ahead with plans to showcase Malayalam language and literature before a global audience. Also on the cards is an ambitious programme to introduce Malayalam to students of Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta varsities.
Vice-Chancellor K Jayakumar said, “The ‘Internationalisation of Malayalam’ is one of the varsity’s major aims and several programmes, including the introduction of an online course on Malayalam language and literature; digitisation of popular Malayalam books and ‘Global Malayalam Meet’ are on the anvil.”
“ Setting up the Gundert Chair at the University of Tubingen in Germany in 2015 October was a major achievement. The student exchange programme that we started had also proved beneficial. Malayalam University had held talks with some other universities in Germany for starting a Malayalam programme. With a few of them we reached an in-principle agreement on student exchange programmes,” he said.
According to him, the backroom work for an online course aimed at the NRI population was nearing completion and it would be ready for launch by 2017.
The course includes 100-120 hour-long lectures on Malayalam language, Kerala culture and literature. The programme which will provide a panoramic view of Malayalam language and culture will act as a familiarisation programme in which participants will be provided 20-hour training in Malayalam language, 40-hour training in Kerala culture and 50-hour training in Malayalam literature.
“The fact is that even though the programme was scheduled for launch on 2016 New Year’s Day, we had to postpone it as we were in the process of getting it ready.The other project that we will take up soon is digitisation of books, which allow users to buy and read popular books in Malayalam, including out of print ones,” adds Jayakumar.