Professional English course for UG students may be scrapped

Professional English course for UG students may be scrapped

Sambath.Kumar@timesgroup.com

Coimbatore:23.09.2021

The Professional English course introduced last year for undergraduate first year students of non-autonomous arts and science colleges in the state is likely to be scrapped from the next academic year.

The course was introduced to familiarize students with vocabulary related to their subjects and taught by subject teachers concerned.

Initiated by former higher education secretary S Apoorva, it was introduced as an additional 1 hour per day add-on subject on par with core subjects. While it came into effect from the 2020-21 academic year, it drew flak as core subject teachers with no English literature background were asked to handle the subject. Further, it was also made mandatory for students to clear the paper to get their degrees.

However, the move received good support from private colleges as they claimed it helped core subject teachers to have better interaction with students.

But, Tamil, Mathematics and teachers of other subjects found it unfair to be asked to teach a professional English subject.

“It was also a learning experience for core subject teachers to teach English who were oriented through a few workshops on handling the subject,” a staff from a private arts and science college in Coimbatore said.

But there was poor response from students for the course. Professional English course was introduced with an objective of helping students of government arts colleges with rural background to become proficient in English speaking, reading and writing.

Students from rural areas pass their degrees but most of them don’t have language proficiency to express themselves and lose out when it comes to better jobs, a senior official from the higher education department, who was part of the project, said.

“Discussions on scrapping the Professional English course are on. It may not be part of the syllabus from next academic year. An official announcement is expected soon,” a senior official from the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE) said.

Last year, Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchi Siva took up the matter with the University Grants Commission (UGC), which had asked the state government to address the issue appropriately.

Siva told TOI that making the subject mandatory for students to clear it to get their degrees was a bit harsh when offline classes were not possible due to the pandemic. “If the higher education department feels the subject is essential and it would make students proficient in English, let them introduce it after the pandemic. But non-English literature teachers being forced to handle a professional English paper will not fetch the desired result,” he said.

Secretary of the Joint Action Council of College Teachers of Tamil Nadu M Krishnaraj said that the TANSCHE had assured the scrap the course.