The government has been asked to help ethnic Chinese revive Mandarin and Chinese cultural education in Kolkata, India.
“I have received pleas for help from the leaders of ethnic Chinese groups during my visits to the groups in Kolkata this year,” said Chen Ho-hsien (陳和賢), the head of the technology division of Taiwan’s representative office in India.
They asked for assistance in addressing the lack of qualified Mandarin teachers and textbooks in the capital of West Bengal state, Chen said.
The diplomat said that he immediately relayed the request to the government, adding that the Ministry of Education has commissioned National Tsing Hua University to establish an education center in Kolkata to promote Mandarin-language education.
The planned facility could help attract qualified Mandarin teachers to Kolkata, home to about 4,000 ethnic Chinese, Chen said.
As for the need for Chinese language and culture textbooks, the Overseas Community Affairs Council can help meet the request, he said.
In the past few years, demand for Mandarin-speaking interpreters has surged in India, particularly in Kolkata — home to one of the largest ethnic Chinese groups in South Asia — amid India’s growing economic and trade ties with Taiwan and China, Chen said.
The demand has triggered an interest among people there to learn Mandarin, but it is difficult to find qualified teachers and textbooks in the city after the only remaining Chinese school there closed several years ago, he added.
Liu Pei-chu (劉斐珠) and Abhrajit Choudhury, who teach Mandarin at schools in Kolkata, said some Indonesian businesspeople have opened Mandarin language schools even though they do not have qualified teachers.
They said that students cannot learn to speak the language properly under such circumstances, and urged Taiwan to help with the lack of teachers.
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