Kerala Chief Minister inaugurates new home for German Centre
Trivandrum / November 17, 2023
Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 17: Kerala Chief Minister Shri Pinarayi Vijayan has inaugurated the own building of the Goethe-Zentrum in the city to house Germany’s language centre and the office of the Honorary Consul.
Speaking on the occasion after the lighting of the lamp at the new building at D-9 at Jawahar Nagar last evening, Shri Vijayan said the relationship between Kerala and Germany dated back to the 19th century with the arrival of the Basel Mission in Kozhikode. It had contributed significantly to the progress of the Malabar in the areas of education, industry and social transformation.
In this context, he also recalled the contributions of Hermann Gundert who combined a Malayalam grammar book “Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam.”
The Chief Minister said with the signing of the Triple Win Agreement between India and the German Federal Employment Agency in December 2021 to recruit 1,500 nurses from Kerala, Goethe-Zentrum, which was set up in Trivandrum and later in Kochi, became the official partner to provide German language training to these candidates.
He expressed happiness over the fact that 30,000 candidates wrote the Goethe-Certificate examinations at both these centres in Kerala. Thus, Kerala has become the pioneer in India to partner directly with Germany for fair and ethically correct migration of human resources.
Mr Vijayan recalled the visit of the German Federal Minister of Labour Mr. Hubertus Heil to Trivandrum in July this year and the discussions he held with the state government on expanding the ties.
H.E Achim Burkart, German Consul General and Regional Director of the Goethe-Institut (South Asia), Dr Shashi Tharoor, MP, Kerala Chief Secretary Dr Venu V, Mayor Smt. Arya Rajendran, Shri V K Prasanth, MLA, Dr Marla Stukenberg, Chief South Asia Region Director of the Goethe-Institut, Dr Syed Ibrahim, Honorary Consul and Director of Goethe Zentrum Trivandrum and Kochi, and Shri Jison John, MD and CEO of Allianz Services India, who helped the Zentrum to construct its own building, also attended the inaugural ceremony.
Part of the worldwide network of Goethe-Institut, the official language and cultural institute of Germany, the Zentrum has been functioning in the city for fifteen years now. It is managed by the Indo-German Language and Cultural Society under the Chairmanship of former Kerala Planning Board Member Mr. G. Vijaya Raghavan.
The centre provides consular assistance to hundreds of people migrating to Germany, including language training and certifying signatures and copies of documents.
Starting with roughly 400 students in Kerala, it now enrols more than 5,600 students yearly, helping them learn German and write the Goethe-Certificate exams.
Designed and executed with utmost care for environmental consciousness, the state-of-the-art premises present an unmatched experience for the visitors and the students.
The eight classrooms have the most modern technological features to conduct German classes with more efficiency and quality.
