New Delhi: The Centre has asked 15 institutions, including four IITs, to start diploma and certificate courses in Mandarin and Japanese to impart basic language skills, but experts warned against short-duration programmes.

The human resource development (HRD) ministry had written to these institutions last November, asking them to launch the courses as part of the government's efforts to promote the two languages.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has made efforts to promote foreign languages such as Japanese, Mandarin, German, Spanish, French and Arabic, but the courses have elicited a lukewarm response.

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has a school of languages that offers advanced courses in foreign languages. But as of now, no short-duration foreign language course is offered by any government institution.

Sources said the government was taking the initiative in view of the manpower requirement at a time China and Japan were stepping up investments in India.

The ministry had earlier set up a committee under the chairmanship of former acting University Grants Commission chairperson V.S. Chauhan. The committee suggested six-month certificate courses and one-year diploma courses in Japanese language. It also proposed certificate and diploma courses of the same duration in Mandarin and a two-year advanced diploma course in the language. The government has accepted the suggestions.

Class XII pass-outs will be eligible for admission.

Professor Priyadarsi Mukherji, who teaches at the Centre for Chinese and South Asian Studies at JNU, said "no six-month or one-year course can serve the purpose of learning anything and serving anything".

"JNU had started a few short-duration courses in some foreign languages in the 1980s. But they were scrapped as the students did not benefit much in terms of learning," Mukherji said.

The Mandarin and Japanese scripts have characters, not alphabets. There are 40,000 characters in Mandarin alone, making the understanding of the language a time-consuming affair.

Courses in Mandarin and Japanese should be at least for two years for students to grasp the basic skills, Mukherji said.

Since there are no National Eligibility Test-qualified teachers in the two languages, the expert committee recommended that the NET criterion be waived for appointments for the short-term courses. However, teachers will need to have a master's degree in either of the languages. The government has accepted these recommendations too.

The institutions that have been asked to start the courses are IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad, JNU, the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Jabalpur, Delhi University, English and Foreign Language University, Visva-Bharati, Sikkim University, Banaras Hindu University, Bangalore University, Tilak Maharashtra University and Doon University.

"The demand for translators and interpreters in Mandarin and Japanese is going to increase significantly because investments by China and Japan have increased. These courses will create potential talents who can be recruited," the source said.

Students clearing the advanced diploma in Mandarin can get admission to the second year of undergraduate courses in Mandarin if they wish to pursue higher studies.