Pune University Marathi Department to teach students English

Even as regional parties clamour for greater attention to the language of the land, those who study and teach Marathi are now turning to English as a last-ditch effort to make themselves employable.

From July, the Department of Marathi of the University of Pune will begin a crash course in English for students who have completed doctorate and higher level of studies in the Marathi language.

The reason for introducing this course is that knowledge of only Marathi, however in-depth, is proving insufficient to get jobs. "Even after getting a master's degree or a PhD, the students of Marathi Department face joblessness. Currently, they can either teach in schools or in colleges, but even these jobs have reached a saturation point. If they want to work in any other industry, like translation jobs, or even language trainers, they get rejected as they don't have working knowledge of English," said Dr Manohar Jadhav, head of the Marathi Department.

The idea came to Jadhav after a few unemployed former students complained they were rejected in job interviews because of their inability to hold a conversation in English. "It is sad that even after attaining mastery over the local language and becoming language experts, our students have to take a crash course in a foreign language for jobs. But we have no choice,' said Jadhav.

Enrolment in the Marathi Department has also been dipping and the faculty is keen to improve the situation. For now, students have welcomed the English crash course idea.

"I come from a rural background and can't speak fluent English. For me the English course will be a good opportunity as I am aware of my low chances of getting a job unless I learn the language," said Haresh Shelke, an MPhil student of Marathi department.