Country's first Confucius classroom to come up in Kolkata

With increasing demand for learning Chinese language and culture, India's first Confucius classroom will come up in Kolkata next year.
"Not only businessmen, but young students also want to learn Chinese. Understanding the language without understanding the culture will not be of much help and that is why we need this classroom," said Charisma Saraff, principal of the School of Chinese Language.
Approved by the Chinese government, this will be the first Confucius classroom in India she said adding, they are bringing 10-15 teachers from China as faculty.
Classes will start from middle of next year and will have the capacity to take around 800 students by the end of 2017.

"Confucius is a way of life. Most people in China do not follow any religion, they just follow a way of life as part of their culture. We are trying to promote that. Not just language, but we will also teach culture, literature, geography and other aspects of life in China," Saraff said.
For example, she said many Indians who are planning to work or study in China do not know how to eat with chopsticks.

"We want to teach them these nuances," she said adding some schools in the city are already offering Chinese language as an optional subject in their curriculum.

The Chinese consulate is also organising an education exhibition in the city in which 30 leading Chinese universities are participating. Prominent among them is the Tsinghua University, which is ranked among top 10 globally.
The two day exhibition will end tomorrow at the Milan Mela grounds.