Madras University bans bilingual exam

Updated on: Tuesday, May 22, 2012

University of Madras has banned students writing semester exams bilingually in both English and Tamil in an attempt to enhance students’ communication skills and help them get placed in a company.

Prof G. Thiruvasagam, university vice-chancellor  said that this decision was taken after consultations with faculty and industry representatives.

“We are not against Tamil but you can develop communication skill only if you converse and write in the same languag

frequently. So we have done this only to improve students’ communication skills in English,” he said.

He pointed out that most of the rural students feel it difficult to speak in English, even after regular soft skill classes were held for them. When we analysed what went wrong, we came to know that it is only because students write their exams both in English and Tamil as they feel its easy for them, he added.

“When a company comes to recruit a student and he/she is not able to communicate in English then his/her chance to get placed becomes grim. To avoid this we have made it mandatory that English medium students need to write their exams only in English. We need to see whether this will help them,” he said.
 

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