Children in Singapore eager to learn Tamil

More and more Indian children in Singapore are learning Tamil, one of the city state's official languages, as their parents are showing a renewed interest in the language and the South Indian culture.
"Though Tamil is being taught in Singapore since 1928 by the mission and other institutions, there is a renewed interest in the language and the South Indian culture," said Swami Satyalokananda, a vice president of Singapore's Ramakrishna Mission outlet.
"Indian parents have shown keen interest in the language and started Tamil lessons for their children from nurseries and kindergarten classes," he told PTI.
Satyalokananda pointed out that this renewed enthusiasm is in line with Singapore government's emphasis to teach it's younger population their mother tongue.

Satyalokananda, a Japanese born in Fukuoka, has seen an increase in pupil enrolment in recent years, keeping up with an ever expanding Indian diaspora in Singapore, which now stands at about 500,000.
"We have 500 students in our school and another 200 on the waiting list," he said.

The mission has also started teaching Hindi, which is not an official language in Singapore, but is widely spoken by the Indian community here.
Besides the mission, classes are also conducted by other educational institutes across Singapore in a number of mother Indian languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Punjabi.

From early days of its independence, Singapore has adopted four official languages - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil.
The Ramakrishna Mission outlet here was established in 1928 to carry forward religious and cultural exchanges between Singapore and India, which began with Swami Vivekananda's first visit here in June 1893.