Japanese language courses in IITs, IIMs soon

Ashu Kumar in New Delhi

The government is planning to introduce Japanese language courses in top of the line engineering and management institutes to increase the acceptability of Indian professionals in Japan. The language courses will first be introduced in Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) and will later be rolled out in other engineering and management colleges.

ESC (Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council) executive director DK Sareen told The Financial Express that ESC has initiated the process to include Japanese language for the final year students of these institutions to break the language barrier for Indian software industry. The ministry of commerce has also in principle agreed to fund 75 per cent of the cost of running these language courses in IITs and IIMs, indicated Mr Sareen.

According to Mr Sareen, Japan is the second largest consumer of computer software after US but Indian IT exports to Japan are still negligible. “Japan not only provides a huge market opportunity within the country but can also generate a lot of spin off business from Japanese companies operating worldwide,” he said.

If Indian companies are able to break-in the local Japanese industry and win the confidence of Japanese conglomerates operating across the world, they would get a lot of business from other countries as well, said Mr Sareen adding that the Japanese companies operating in the US can also be a very good source of IT-enabled service business. ESC has rolled out several initiatives to promote Indo-Japan software trade, claimed Mr Sareen adding that the council is participating in Microcomputer System and Tools (MST) fair, to be held in Japan in November.