JORHAT, Jan 15 - The Asam Sahitya Sabha in collaboration with the Tezpur University will launch two one-year diploma courses on Communicative English and Communicative Assamese tomorrow to be conducted in five centres across the State.
Sabha�s distance learning programme cell convener Ramanandan Borah told The Assam Tribune today that the State�s premier literary organisation has tied up with Tezpur University to start two diploma courses on Communicative English and Communicative Assamese.
He said that the initiative has been undertaken after it was felt that there was a need for initiating courses on the two subjects.
Borah said that it has been observed that a sizeable number of people arrive in Assam every year from outside the State due to postings in the Central government offices and in the private companies as well.
He said that those people coming from outside Assam face difficulties in learning and speaking Assamese language and face problems to interact with local people.
�With an aim to reach out to non-Assamese people willing to learn and speak Assamese for functional purpose, the Sabha has joined hands with Tezpur University to run a diploma course in Communicative Assamese,� Borah said.
The convener said the decision to run a diploma course on English has been taken to assist those people especially, the youths who lag behind in spoken English.
Borah said fluency in spoken English was nowadays essential for employment and for a better career in any sector and there was a need to assist school students passing out from Assamese medium schools who seem to be lagging behind the private English medium schools.
He said the Department of English and Foreign Languages of Tezpur University has prepared the course for Communicative English while the Centre for Assamese Studies has designed it for the Communicative Assamese. Borah said the course study materials will be provided by the university.
He said the department has trained teachers (mostly from colleges) regarding the content of the courses and about methods of teaching the same in five centres. The teaching centres are Guwahati, Morigaon, Jorhat, Dhubri and Tezpur. Another centre at Naharlagun (Arunachal Pradesh) has been proposed.
He said that Tezpur University will conduct the examinations for the courses and award the diplomas to the successful candidates. However, the diploma certificates will have the name and logo of the Asam Sahitya Sabha.
The eligibility for the courses is higher secondary passed and the fee is Rs 2000 per student. Borah said classes will be held three days in a week and over 60 students for both the first batches of the courses have taken admission.
He said that in a ceremony to be organized at the Tezpur College tomorrow, the courses will be formally launched in presence of top Sabha leaders and Tezpur University authorities.
