News Report
NEW JERSEY, USA, July 23, 2007: The Edison School District in New Jersey has received a federal grant of nearly US$200,000 to introduce Hindi as a foreign language in its schools. Edison has the highest concentration of Indians in the United States. This happened on the eve of the three-day Eighth World Hindi Conference in New York which began on July 13, 2007, and welcomed by Hindi-lovers in the United States of America.
School authorities said Hindi would be introduced as a foreign language in Edison schools from the next academic year beginning September 2008. The federal grant to the Edison School District for this is part of the new initiative by the Bush Administration to increase the number of Americans learning critical-need foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Farsi.
The announcement from Edison School authorities has been welcomed by the residents of Edison, a large number of whom for the past several years were campaigning for this. HindiUSA is an organization that is campaigning for the introduction of Hindi in US schools. Devendra Singh of the HindiUSA said that his organization would help Edison School authorities in developing the syllabus for various classes and other teaching standards and tools.