Established in 1961, the Department of Foreign Languages has the distinction of conducting teaching programmes in seven major languages of Asia and Europe; namely, Chinese, Japanese, Sinhalese, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Polish. Theses programmes range from Certificate/Diploma courses in all the languages to BA (Hons.), M.A. and Ph.D in Russian and Chinese.
The Department has currently sanctioned strength of 16 faculty members. ( Professors - 2, Associate Professors - 4, Assistant Professors -10). They are supported by six visiting foreign teachers who are appointed under various MoUs and exchange programmes with foreign countries. Their participation facilitates native speaker input to the language teaching. Moreover, it helps us getting latest didactic teaching materials and provide opportunities to our students to get scholarship and other short and long term awards to pursue advanced studies in foreign countries.
The Department caters to more than 600 students from various faculties of the university and professionals from varied sectors from the outside in their part-time Diploma and full time degree courses. With the spread of globalization, our students are getting good offers of job from both government and MNCs and other business concerns dealing at the international level. Our students have also been recipients of scholarships from China, Japan, Spain, Poland, Italy, Russia etc
In the XII Plan period, the Department proposes to start degree courses in Japanese. It also plans to introduce several languages of the Southeast Asian countries following the recent thrust of our government towards Look East and the beginning of, what is popularly proclaimed, as the Asian Century.
The Department also proposes to participate in the newly established independent Centres of Inter-Cultural Studies as well as Translation Studies to promote interdisciplinary researches and studies. These centres would provide fillip to the academic and research programme .