New ‘home’ for German Centre in Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the building of the Goethe-Zentrum in the city to house Germany’s language centre and the office of the Honorary Consul.

CM Vijayan pointed out that the relationship between Kerala and Germany dated back to the 19th century with the arrival of the Basel Mission in Kozhikode as it had contributed significantly to the progress of Malabar in the areas of education, industry and social transformation.

The CM recalled the contributions of Hermann Gundert who combined a Malayalam grammar book 'Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam'.

The Chief Minister said that 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 here 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.

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 15 years now.

It is managed by the Indo-German Language and Cultural Society under the Chairmanship of former Kerala Planning Board Member 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 enrolls more than 5,600 students yearly, helping them learn German and write the Goethe-Certificate exams.