Will set up Tamil language centres around the world: K Pandiarajan, Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture

The Tamil Nadu State Government plans to set up about 1,000 Tamil development centres and Tamil cultural centres around the world to promote the language, announced K Pandiarajan, Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture. He was replying to a question posed by a member of the audience at TNIE's ThinkEdu Conclave 2020 on how the State would spread the language worldwide.

‘‘There are about 1.5 crore Tamilians who live outside India and we have sought the support of the Central Government under the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat initiative, in which they will hopefully sanction ₹100 crore for the project,’’ the Minister said.

He added that the government would be setting up 20 different centres in the non-Tamil states across India where there are more than 10,000 Tamil speaking people. The idea is reminiscent of the Dakshina Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha that was established in 1918 with the sole purpose of propagating Hindi in the southern states.

Addressing students and delegates at the two-day conclave, the Minister stressed on the need for students to pursue higher education in History. "History, culture and heritage shape the identity of a young child,’’ he said, adding that the learning of it needs to go as high as a Post Graduation degree. 

‘‘The syllabus we have set up in Tamil Nadu is a notch better than the CBSE syllabus,’’ he said, pointing out that the cardinal mistake in India was to transfer education from the State list to the Concurrent list. 

"The government strongly advocates the diversity in education and we are hundred per cent against the Central Government’s 'one nation, one education' system," said the Minister, pointing out instances like the NEET exams. 

He stressed on the need to have practical labs for History just like how there are labs for Physics and Chemistry. ‘‘We are converting all the 37 museums in Tamil Nadu into History labs for children and they must spend half a day in a year in a museum nearby,’’ he said. 

The Minister said that these elements would have the ability to enable children to connect with our history. Museums turning into History labs would have six kinds of panels like social history, art history, political history and economic history, he said. 

The Minister also pointed out that almost 90 per cent of digitisation of historical artefacts was completed and the information will soon be available on the internet, which will boost research work in the field of Archaeology.