Bringing Hindi language classes to Melbourne's western suburbs
A CQUni Melbourne senior lecturer in ICT, Dr Ritesh Chugh is leading a community engagement initiative in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
Dr Chugh is lobbying for the introduction of Hindi (the largest spoken Indian language) classes for school children via the Victorian School of Languages (VSL).
As part of the Department of Education & Early Childhood Development (DEECD), the VSL is a government-funded school committed to the provision of language programs for students in Years 1 to 12 who do not have access to the study of those languages in their mainstream schools.
Dr Chugh has had some success with the initiative and VSL has requested him to gather data from parents of potential students who would be interested in attending Hindi language classes.
In a recent interview with SBS Hindi radio, he talked about the importance of Hindi, not only for children of a Hindi language background, but also others in the community. He spoke about how everyone can benefit from learning Hindi. The SBS Podcast (in Hindi) is available via SBS Podcast website.
"Hindi is the lingua franca of most people originating from India," Dr Chugh said.
The CQUni Melbourne academic is very hopeful of success in this community engagement initiative. Once this initiative is a success, he plans to approach schools to embed Hindi in their curriculum and to make it available to students as a Language other than English (LOTE) option too.
This initiative demonstrates one of the many ways in which CQUniversity engages with the wider community.
