Japan-India relations have been flourishing in recent years, and have especially intensified in the political and economic fields. However, the potential for people-to-people contacts, which is one of the basic pillars of our bilateral relations, has not yet been fully tapped. Thus, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan, and Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, agreed to increase the number of Japanese language learners in India up to 30,000 by the year 2010, and the introduction of Japanese language as an optional foreign language in Indian Secondary School Curriculum, as a part of the Eight-fold Initiative for strengthening Japan-India Global Partnership, agreed at the Japan-India Summit in April 2005.

     Towards this direction, the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi, in association with the Japan Foundation New Delhi office, is organizing an “All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education” on 28 February 2006 in New Delhi. The purpose of this Conference is to understand the present status and the bottlenecks of Japanese language learning in India and, based upon these understandings, to discuss about means to remove them and further promote Japanese language education.

The detailed agenda of the Conference, along with major themes of discussion and the names of main speakers in the Conference, are attached herewith.

    All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education
(Organized by the Embassy of Japan, co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation) February 21, 2006
Date: February 28 (Tuesday), 2006

Registration of Participants = 09:30-10:00
Inaugural Session = 10:00-10:30
Remarks by Ambassador Mr. Y. Enoki
Remarks by Chief Guest, (Mr. Ashok Ganguly, Chairman, Central Board of Secondary Education(TBC))
(To be confirmed )

Session 1: Assessment of the Present State (Problems and Challenges) 10:30-11:15

Japan-India relations have been flourishing in recent years, and have especially intensified in the political and economic fields. However, the potential of people-to-people contacts, which is one of the basic pillars of our bilateral relations, has not yet been fully tapped. Thus, PM Mr. Junichiro Koizumi and PM Dr. Manmohan Singh agreed to increase the number of Japanese language learners in India up to 30,000 by 2010, and the introduction of Japanese language as an optional foreign language in Indian Secondary School Curriculum, as a part of the Eight-fold Initiative for strengthening Japan-India Global Partnership agreed at the Japan-India Summit in 2005.

In this session, the discussion will focus on understanding of the present state/ scenario of study of Japanese Language in India, and then discuss about the bottlenecks of promoting Japanese Language education and ways to remove them.

Chairman : Dr. Ashok Jain, President of MOSAI

Points of discussion
a) Available Sources/ Centers offering Japanese Language courses in India
b) Approx. number of students undertaking the above courses every year
c) Career Options/Employment opportunities for students who learned Japanese Language
d) The need to secure greater numbers of Indian teachers to teach Japanese language to Indian students
e) How are language-teachers recruited in Indian schools?

Session 2: The ways and means to enhance the effectiveness of teaching/ learning system 11:15-12:00

Taking into account the fact that the population of India is more than 1 billion, the target of 30,000 is not a huge number. But, on the other hand, taking into account the diversity of Indian society, it is not easy to accomplish this task. Therefore, it is necessary to come up with an effective system to increase the number of those who learn Japanese Language.
In this session, the discussion will focus on ways to establish effective systems through universities and schools to increase the number of learners, and feasibilities of regional approach to effectively utilize limited human resources and train would-be teachers in regions

Chairman : Mr. Toshio Yamamoto, Embassy of Japan

Theme 1: Role of Universities 11:15-12:00

Points of discussion
a) Indian Government’s policy on promoting foreign languages in Universities
b) Interests for students to learn Japanese language
c) The possibilities of imparting Japnese language to B. Ed Students as means to pool future Japanese language teachers
d) How to utilize experiences in Japanese Language learning for Career Options/Employment opportunities

Theme 2: Role of Schools 13:00-13:45

Points of discussion
a) Indian Government’s Policy on promoting foreign languages in Schools
b) Good practices in Japanese Language
c) Where to ask for support in starting Japanese Language Education

Theme 3: Strengthening of region specific approach 13:45-14:30

Points of discussion
a) Utilization of Japanese Staff, including JOCV in establishing Regional Centers
b) The experiences of CBSE in conducting country-wide education and how regional centers of CBSE are operating
c) Activities of Consulates General in major Cities in India


Session 3: How to encourage Indian people to learn Japanese Language? 14:45-16:00

In order to fully utilize an effective system to increase the number of Japanese Language learners, it is crucial to provide encouragements to learn Japanese Language. Taking into account that there are strong spiritual affinities between peoples of both countries, we can expect a good increase in the number of learners, but with strong encouragements we can increase more than we expect.
In this session, the discussion will focus on ways to come up with encouragements to attract more Indians to learn Japanese language, in particular, focusing on practices in private sectors.

Chairman : Ambassador Mr. Arjun Asrani

Points of discussion
a) Activities of Japanese Government to promote “Japan” in India
b) Activities of Consulates General in major Cities in India, in relation to Japanese Language Teaching
c) Point of views of private sectors


Concluding Remarks 16:00-16:10

Ambassador Mr. Y. Enoki



Vote of Thank
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