Afaq Masud, Director of the Azerbaijan Translation Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers (AzTC), on Wednesday received the students admitted to the Azerbaijan University of Languages (AUL) with higher scores. The meeting focused on the actuality of the translation industry, peculiarities of the translation profession, as well as the existing problems.

"As one of the former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, Azerbaijan had used the Russian language to communicate the world community for many years. Nowadays Azerbaijan integrates into the world community with its own independent policy and language," Director Masud said. 

She also spoke about the work done over the past years in the field of translation and education system, which is the basis for personnel and problems in the field of language teaching. Language is a means of communication to establish and exchange ties in various fields, to initiate joint activities, and to manage official correspondence on an international level.  

"The Translation Centre was founded in accordance with Decree No. 169 of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic, Ilham Aliyev. This order has created ample opportunities to eliminate obstacles in developing the translation industry, as well as to develop this sphere in line with Azerbaijan's political course. Sometimes people attribute AzTC to small translation centres providing translation services, and sometimes they accept us as a creative institution dealing only with literary translation. But this is not the case. AzTC is strategically a significant executive state body, which centralizes translation work, optimizes and controls the language and translation industry in the country. We have invited you here with a view to hearing your opinions on the results of researches conducted on the state of teaching in translation industry and to find out ways to fill gaps. Firstly, I congratulate each of you with your success in education and wish you the best in this honourable, but difficult profession. First and foremost, I should note that researches in the field of teaching translation showed that in the admission process to higher educational institutions in most cases translation specialty is noted only on the second or third line, i.e. it was discovered that in order not to stay outside the educational institution school leavers choose this profession. Another charged question is that certain gifted students with higher scores that have chosen this speciality leave Azerbaijan to continue their education abroad and are not back home," she said

A. Masud went on saying that a State Program is under preparation: "The program will cover the implementation of relevant measures to actualize language and translation industry; acquisition of the language and translation industry in specific fields; and cultural improvement of teaching and practical application.

Then the students took the floor.

 Ceyhun Shabazly: AUL, Translation Faculty, Korean language

"Interest in translating profession should be fostered from school years. And students have no idea about this field of activity. Only after being admitted to the university, I learned that there are many different branches of translation industry. Outreach events for schoolchildren shouldn't be hectic, there should be consistent trainings, and you need to be awoken interest in this sphere."

Rzayeva Jale:  AUL, Translation Faculty, English language

-  I completely agree with the statement above. Some of our relatives reacted regretfully to the fact that we gained higher scores but chose the translating profession. They wanted us to have chosen the jurisprudence, and we at the beginning knowing almost nothing about the chosen profession, too, have also been disappointed, but eventually we have realized that this is a fascinating profession. Regretfully, we were not told at school what important and essential profession was."

At the end of the meeting, gifts consisting of AzTC's books and printing material were given to the students.

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