Sunday, August 30, 2015

Oldest language fails to attract more youngsters


As World Sanskrit Day was being celebrated on Saturday, head of Sanskrit department of Ranchi University, Janki Devi rued that there were hardly any takers for the language and the department seats have never been filled to capacity.

Janki Devi said, "There are 72 seats in the department but we have only 30 students. Last year, the number of students was 38. The situation has been same for the last few years."

"If the government makes Sanskrit a compulsory subject in schools from primary classes, the interest of the students will automatically increase and more students will opt for the subject in future," she said.

Despite being a very scoring subject at school level, very few students prefer to study Sanskrit at college as the job opportunities after studying the subject is very low.

A student of PG Hindi department, Manju Sinha said, "I had an option of choosing either Hindi or Sanskrit in UG level but I preferred Hindi as there are very limited career options in Sanskrit. In fact the only thing you can do is get into the teaching profession if you study Sanskrit. Also, there is no opportunity of campus placement after studying Sanskrit."

On the other hand most of the students who study Sanskrit are those who prepare for competitive examinations. Anant Pandey, a student of Sanskrit PG said, "I am preparing for union public service commission examination. I opted for Sanskrit because I want it to be my main language paper in the UPSC exam as it is very scoring and very few aspirants opt for it. Similar is the case with many of my classmates."

However, Janki Devi claims that there are many career options available after getting a masters degree in Sanskrit.

"The toppers of the department are given a chance to work as assistant professors in the department itself and they even get many scholarships from various universities. This apart, one can become an astrologer after studying astrology. Those who are good in a subject will never sit idle," she said.

She added, "Another interesting thing is that as Sanskrit is considered the mother of all languages, after studying Sanskrit a student can pursue a course in any other language as it will be easy for them to understand and then they can work as a translator or interpreter."

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