CHENNAI: Students in professional courses like engineering, medicine, law, veterinary and agriculture will soon have their subject books in
Tamil
by renowned publishers, with the
Tamil Nadu Textbooks and Educational Services Corporation having identified 170 textbooks for translation.
Books by renowned publishers like Penguin, Pearson, Oxford University Press,
Orient Blackswan
, Elsevier, McGraw-Hill and also local players like Kalyani Publishers will be translated and jointly published by original publishers and textbook corporation under the Muthamizh Arignar Translation Project. Senior professors and translators from colleges and universities have been roped in for the translation project. “In the first phase, we will bring out 50 textbooks in Tamil by June 2022. Another 50 textbooks will be translated in the next phase,” said T
Sankara Saravanan
, deputy director (translations),
Tamil Nadu Textbook
and Educational Services Corporation.
The objective is to make these books available in Tamil to rural students. The international and national publishers' catalogue will mention these books also available in Tamil. “It will ensure that these books stay in print for many years. The publishers also benefit as they will get a new market,” he said.
The Tamil books will be made available to the college and university libraries after publication. The higher education department has given a letter stating it will purchase 150 copies of each translated book to distribute to colleges.
Individual students and faculty members can also buy these books from the textbook corporation after they are released. T Udhayachandran, who is currently secretary to the chief minister, conceived the translation project in 2017 when he was secretary in the
school education department
.
Academic circles are aware that students have lost the habit of reading during the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years. To encourage them to read, the textbook corporation will publish small story books with 8-12 pages for various age groups under Ilanthalir Ilakkiya Thittam. “We have divided the children into categories based on their age — 3 years to 5 years, 6 years to 8years and 9 years to 13 years. We have identified children writers in Tamil and given them 50 different topics. Already 50 stories are ready with us now. These story books will be sent to all school libraries,” said
Appanasamy M
, advisor (publication) Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation. Besides these two projects, famous Tamil books will be translated into English and other Dravidian languages and books from other languages also will be translated to Tamil under the “Thisaithorum Dravidam” project.
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