Kolkata: Scottish Church College in Kolkata is preparing to launch an online Bengali language course for foreign learners, enabling participants around the globe to gain proficiency in both spoken and written Bengali.
Titled Eso Bangla Shikhi (“Come, Learn Bengali”), the programme will be offered in three levels, Primary, Intermediate and Advanced. Unlike crash courses limited to basic words or phrases, it is designed to help students achieve both reading and speaking competence.
College principal Madhumanjari Mandal said the initiative was proposed by the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre (BRC), which sought an online course for non-Bengali, largely foreign, followers of ISKCON wishing to read Bengali manuscripts in their original form.
The link between the Christian college and the Vaishnav community is longstanding—ISKCON founder-acharya Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (born Abhay Charan De) was once a student at Scottish Church College.
“The BRC has supported the college in many ways, from donating prizes to digitising rare books and developing seminar rooms,” Mandal said. “They proposed a globally accessible online Bengali speaking-and-reading course. Our Bengali department is designing the course, while the BRC is providing financial backing.”
The course will be open to all learners, not just ISKCON members. Each level will conclude with a joint certificate from Scottish Church College and the BRC.
Course nodal teacher Bidisha Sinha said the Primary Level will consist of 24 one-hour classes, each followed by multiple-choice assessments. A promotional video and other audio-visual materials are in production, with recording work expected to finish by mid-September. “We aim to launch the first level by September,” Sinha said.