Source http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/05/15/fea01.asp

The address by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the Oxford Union on an invitation of the Oxford Union and the Sri Lankan Society of Oxford University on Monday.

I wish to speak to you on a subject of much interest to my country at the present time. That is the empowerment of the rural economy, a central theme of my development strategy for Sri Lanka.

Our development strategy towards empowering the rural economy of our country, where majority of our people live, has now become relevant to the global economy itself in the context of the emerging world food crisis and environmental challenges to our own survival. We have an additional burden. We are threatened by the challenge of terrorism and the need to protect the rights of our fellow beings.

Traditional culture

Sri Lanka where I was born and bred is a country where our culture is firmly rooted in rural tradition. The Sri Lankan culture has been essentially conditioned by the great religion of Buddhism, but later influenced by Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.

The concepts of loving kindness, compassion and tolerance are at the heart of our psychological make up. They nourish and sustain us through the uncertainties of life. Our traditional greeting ‘Ayubowan’ means - May you live long.

It is not surprising then that in a world where rulers constructed massive castles and grand palaces to demonstrate their power and wealth, our kings constructed huge reservoirs - tanks, as we call them to provide water to sustain food production and ensure sustainable livelihood to the people. The great legacy left behind by our ancient rulers, and which is in use even today scattered across three vast provinces of my island home, is the massive irrigation network.

This unique hydraulic civilisation which sustained an essentially prosperous rural society, was based on a philosophy which has much to offer the modern world.

Buddhism taught us that we have no absolute ownership of the forests, the rivers, the oceans and the atmosphere that sustain life; that every generation holds the environment in trust, so that its abuse is prevented; and that our duty was to hand down the environment. to future generations without harm.

Rural areas

Even today, over 77 per cent of our people still live in rural areas because of a wide range of attractions in our rural home base. I myself hail from the deep south, from an agrarian village with a beautiful natural environment.

I am extremely proud of that fact. The attraction in our villages is not only the economic resources and greenery, but also the traditional culture, arts, religion and bio-diversity which are incentives to keep our people away from migrating into urban townships.

The horrors of poverty and suffering that have engulfed many booming Asian cities have not affected Sri Lanka.

Strengthened by the caring attitude inherited from our ancient rulers, we were able to adapt to modern democracy with great ease. It was in 1931, while still under the British, that Sri Lanka was granted universal franchise.

You will recall that Britain achieved this status only in 1926. Since then we have continued to develop and strengthen democratic institutions in Sri Lanka. Political pluralism has always been fundamental to our democracy. We have parties of different political views represented in our parliament. This diversity uniquely enriches Sri Lanka’s political canvass.

Coalition

The Government, although elected by a Sinhala Buddhist majority, represents a coalition of Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim communities and all the religious groups in the country. You will be hard pressed to find a similarly representative government in any of the other democracies of the world. I am proud of our vibrant parliamentary system, the strong judicial establishment, and the independent press.

Not a day passes without an attack on me, I must say totally without foundation, from some parts of the media. We have not hesitated to adopt global standards, collaborate with international organisations such as the UN, ILO and the Commonwealth, and participate in efforts to consolidate institutions designed to protect the rights of our fellow humans.

Sri Lanka has contributed with vigour and creativity to the development of the principles incorporated in international conventions, through their work in international organisations and through the International Court of Justice.

We have always played our part in global efforts to establish higher standards, and to make our earth a better place for all, because we fundamentally feel that this is the correct thing to do.

Equal opportunities

This is a reflection of our cultural traditions. Sri Lanka’s conformity to global environmental standards has been commended time and time again.

Women in Sri Lanka enjoy equal opportunities with men. Over 60 per cent of our medical practitioners are women. Over 80 per cent of our teachers are women.

The nursing profession is dominated by women. The legal profession too is increasingly dominated by women. Women have also entered sections of the work force previously monopolized by men such as, academia, engineering, computing, quantity surveying and architecture.

I recall with great delight that Sri Lanka produced world’s first elected woman Prime Minister in 1960. Her husband, Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, whose portrait hangs over there, was also a prime minister of Sri Lanka.

For decades we have invested in education and health. My country enjoys one of the highest literacy standards in the world, while still being categorised as a middle income developing country. 97 per cent of our children are enroled at school.

Our infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate at child birth, is on par with that of many developed countries. The country provides free healthcare to all. Education is free and universal from childhood to university. During the primary and secondary school life of every child the government provides free text books and uniforms.

One of my long-lasting joys is the sight of thousands of children in crispy white uniforms heading for school each morning.

This is probably a sight that one cannot witness in many other places of the world. Children are precious to us. I believe they are our future. We have ensured a massive investment in our children.

My government firmly believes that no child must be deprived of his or her childhood. We have created a separate ministry to look after the welfare of our children. We do not employ any children in our labour force, and no one below the age of eighteen is recruited to our Armed Forces - unlike the LTTE, which engages thousands in its baby brigades.

These children are robbed of their childhood, and brutality is ingrained into their character, making them life-long misfits for society.

Achievements

Sri Lanka has achieved a very high standard in the United Nations Human Development Index, and we have already, to a large extent, achieved the Millennium Development Goals. It was only last month that a UN Report commended Sri Lanka for being well on its way to eliminating malaria.

We have a very low rate of HIV/AIDS infection. I point these things out to you only because of the intense campaign that is being conducted internationally, to describe my country as one that does not care about our fellow human beings and human needs. Facts demonstrate that this is far from the truth.

There are no signs of obvious starvation in any part of the country. In fact for over 25 years, since the beginning of the LTTE’s violent challenge to our very existence, to our sovereignty, the government has been sending food, medicine and educational material to the two districts dominated by the LTTE.

Every single teacher, nurse, doctor, hospital and government official in the LTTE controlled areas is appointed and paid by the Government. Very few countries grappling with terrorism have been so accommodating. This itself illustrates the caring nature of our society.

These noteworthy achievements have been possible because of a holistic view of human development to which we have always been firmly committed. We believe that development becomes meaningful to the vast mass of the people only when its fruits are capable of being enjoyed by all segments of the people.

That is why we have constantly tried not only to achieve growth and expansion of our national wealth but to ensure that the resources generated by our efforts are distributed among the people, especially, in the rural hinterland, on an equitable basis.

Empowerment

Our development model as presented in my election manifesto, the Mahinda Chinthana, signifies the empowerment of the rural economy.

The centre piece of this new strategy will be the development of modern infrastructure throughout the country to provide a basis for development of Agriculture, Industry, Construction, Tourism, SMEs and transport services that will bring about new opportunities to our people in the rural economy.

Our strategy has enhanced the public investments over 6 percent of GDP to support ‘Randora’ - meaning Golden Gate - our infrastructure development initiative to develop new ports, power generation and distribution networks, and integrated townships to the link rural economy to the global economy and create new space for growth.

We have integrated strategies to promote insurance, shipping, aviation, trade, logistic industries and petroleum explorations, and above all, skills and knowledge to position Sri Lanka as an emerging economic hub in South Asia.

Empowering people at grassroots level is equally important in this whole development process. ‘Gama Neguma’, meaning revival of the village, is an initiative to empower communities, adopting bottom up programmes originating from communities and reflecting their needs.

A series of rural development initiatives have been implemented, permitting the community to prioritise their needs and objectives. These initiatives are monitored by community leaders to ensure that a larger volume of resources are productively used for the betterment of the rural community.

Healthy environments

The main thrust of this programme is to retain people in rural environments, rather than encouraging them to move into urban areas; which has been the pattern in many developing economies.

Why should people move into urban areas and live in slums or sub-standard housing, when they can live in very healthy environments in villages, and enjoy clean air, water and pure and good food. It is my belief that rural people are much healthier than those who live in urban cities.

Our approach to development takes into consideration the dangers of destroying the green environment. Every project that is implemented under Gama Naguma recognises the value of green belts and the preservation of the forest cover.

The environmental protection programmes that are implemented throughout the island make a serious attempt to ensure that rivers are kept clean, waterways are not dirtied and trees are not destroyed. The bed rock of our development is maintaining and preserving the environment.

Consolidating our achievements in human resource development, we are now working towards a knowledge economy based on productivity, skills, knowledge and technology. Therefore, education and health is being undertaken at grass roots level through multi-faceted government programmes. In particular, I am very keen to ensure that our children are able to become global citizens through the use of Information Technology.

In a novel programme called ‘Nenasala’, a network of 500 rural tele-centers has already been established. I have set a target to increase this upto 1,000 by next year.

Three years ago, Sri Lanka’s IT literacy stood at a little over 5 per cent. Today I feel accomplished that we have been able to enhance this to 20 per cent. Which means that more and more people will be able to enter the lucrative IT job market. All this is being done to enhance the employability of rural youth.

The essence of our rural empowerment programme is to ensure that rural infrastructure development takes place at a rapid rate. So far neglected rural roads are being paved today with concrete to make them last the monsoon rains that are common in our part of the world. Rural electricity programmes, community water supply schemes, minor irrigation projects, housing and market facilities are included in our rural infrastructure development drive.

In essence our strategy is to level the playing field between the ‘urban, organised minority’ and the ‘rural, unorganized majority’, in the national development process. I am encouraged that our development strategy - Mahinda Chinthana - Vision Towards a New Sri Lanka, sustained a near 7 per cent economic growth during the last three years, and reached US dollars 1,600 per capita income in 2007. Except in one district, people below the poverty line have declined drastically in 2007.

Challenged

Unfortunately we are being challenged by “the most brutal terrorist group in the world” as the LTTE has been described by the FBI. Suicide killings using even women and children have become their hallmark. It is this terror group that invented the deadly suicide vest for the suicide killer. Having pioneered the suicide vest, they have freely given this technology to other terror groups in the world. This has now become a global menace.

There have been hundreds of innocent, civilians returning home after work, children going to school and young mothers going to their weekly clinics, being maimed or killed by indiscriminately exploded bombs in crowded centres or being targeted by brain-washed suicide bombers.

You need to see the carnage caused by shattered limbs and burning human flesh, to understand the sheer brutality that motivates this group of terrorists.

They killed Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, and Ranasinghe Premadasa, the former President of Sri Lanka.

Most recently, a senior Minister of my government, a Tamil speaking Catholic, was brutally murdered by a suicide killer, along with a former Olympic athlete among many others participating in a sporting event.

They also killed our former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, a scholar of distinction, and legal luminary, who once occupied this seat as the President of the Oxford Union with distinction.

It has become incumbent upon us to confront this group to the extent of our ability, deploying all the resources of the State, to protect the people of Sri Lanka and their democratic way of life. I must add that what I am doing is in no way different to what other democracies have done before, and continue to do, in the face of terrorism.

Brutal terror outfit

However, I must state that the LTTE is the most brutal terror outfit the world has ever seen, and defeating them requires global support.

What Sri Lanka is doing, in my opinion, is fighting this terror outfit single handed to ensure that democracy and respect for human life prevail in the world. If we fail in our war against the LTTE, the world will fail in its fight against terrorism, and democracy will be the victim. This is the plain truth.

Our development thrust unfortunately has had its own obstacles, the main being the brutal terrorist threat that makes us, a developing country, to take a heavy toll. It is time that the world, raising its united voice, expressed its utter revulsion of the barbaric practice of suicide bombings.

It must be made absolutely clear that this form of political expression, if it could be described as such, is utterly unacceptable in the civilised world.

There is a considerable challenge to the Security Forces of my country, whose goal is simply to protect the innocents and their simple way of life. We need to understand that our Security Forces do not go out of their way to harass innocents, or to discriminate against a minority.

They take great personal risks constantly. The fear psychosis created by the LTTE terror, may cause some lapses in judgment, but by and large, independent observers have always commended the efficiency, politeness and courtesy of the men in uniform.

We must remember that there are no methods or solutions which are universally applicable to situations of this nature. It is the principal duty of a government to assure the public of security of life and limb.

It is the terrorist group that decides when to strike: They decide the time, the place and the opportunity. They are in no way constrained by the values and procedures which rightly control the responses of democratic Governments. These realities must be taken into account as the basis of a fair and objective assessment of Sri Lanka’s situation.

Free and fair elections

Although many have said that the LTTE is invincible, we have freed our Eastern Province of their terror. Within one year we have restored democracy there after nearly two decades.

Only last week we conducted free and fair elections to the first ever Eastern Provincial Council, contested by several political parties.

As our forces seek to defeat and disarm the LTTE, we are firm in our resolve to have a negotiated solution to the crisis in Sri Lanka.

I do not believe in a military solution. We have attempted talks with the LTTE on several occasions - thrice since my election as the President - but they have not reciprocated. They have always left the talks with lame excuses. We are still ready to talk, once we are certain of their genuine intent for a political solution… and their readiness to give up arms.

As young leaders, you will take on increasing responsibilities in later life. Destiny will place you in circumstances where you will be called upon to lead and defend your countries. As someone who has been nurtured and strengthened by an ethical and caring culture, I wish to leave with you with some thoughts.

You and I are privileged to be what we are today, but, there are millions of our fellow beings who are not that fortunate, and who need our guidance, leadership and caring. Leadership to these masses of people will have to be given by you.

Your leadership must be one that reflects your cultural and religious values, sense of integrity, dedication to the cause of eliminating human suffering, and a sense of generosity. In conclusion, let me say that our chosen path to development of my country, especially the rural areas, continues to be a challenge for all of us, particularly with threats that are both internal and external.

The protection and advancement of human rights continues to be a challenge for all of us, not only in Sri Lanka but globally. I only seek to encourage you to think of Sri Lanka as a country that has achieved considerable success in caring for its people, in the face of a most brutal challenge thrown at us by terrorists.

We will continue to comply with the highest standards in keeping with values and traditions we hold to be sacrosanct.

May the Noble Triple Gem Bless you all!

This info will be useful for young eVilllage leaders.

The search is on for the young community leader awards 2008, where all Sri Lankans who had done community services to his/her best ability would be selected according to the services he or she had done under a wide range of categories which could be;

* Peace building
* Human Rights
* Women’s Rights
* Child Rights
* HIV-AIDS
* Community Health
* Employment - Livelihood Development
* Youth Empowerment
* Culture and Arts
* Sports
* Agriculture and Irrigation
* Environmental Sustainability
* Education
* Disaster Management
* Information Communication Technology

The winner will receive a one million project grant and apart from the winner, the organisers are also appreciating the other individuals and will in fact choose three individuals from each category and reward them with gold, silver and bronze medals for their talent of helping the helpless with a lot of commitment.

The Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS) - Youth Empowerment Division are finding the exact person who had reached the underprivileged in order to build a cohesive Sri Lanka.

The event is open for those between 15-30 years of age.

Application forms can be collected from BCIS-YCL Awards Secretariat or can be downloaded from www.bcis.edu.lk/ycl.

The Youth Services Officer affiliated to the National Youth Services Council through the AGA offices.

The applications are also available at the main office and the regional offices of the following; Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association, Sri Lanka Scouts Association, Young Men’s Christian Association, Young Women’s Christian Association, All Ceylon Buddhist Congress, Rotary Club, Family Planning Association, Young Entrepreneurs Sri Lanka, All Ceylon Hindu Congress, Muslim Peace Secretariat.

Applications close on May 10.

For more details contact the BCIS-YCL Awards Secretariat, Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, BMICH, Colombo 7, Tel.: 011-2698019, 077-3988093, E-mail: ycl@bcis.edu.lk, Visit: www.bcis.edu.lk

Courtesey: http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=13125

English as a Life Skill set to increase jobs in IT sector

By Dilrukshi FernandoOver 200,000 students are ballooning into an anti-establishment each year under the public school system, according to Enterprise, Development and Investment Promotion Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama. The minister’s comments came at a Presidential Task Force Initiative “English as a Life Skill”, Business forum and exhibition jointly organized by the Presidential Secretariat and the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka last week. “Only 1,700 students benefit from the budget allocation assigned for higher education after gaining acceptance to local universities,” Amunugama said delivering the keynote address at the forum. The disparity between the students arises, according to him, when the youth who could not gain admittance begin to search for jobs. English which has become an essential skill in the private sector and tint the global sphere as a universal language poses as a problem to most children from outstation government schools in the island. According to Presidential Task Force Coordinator Sunimal Fernando, 21,000 English teachers are “supposed to be teaching English” in 10,000 government schools in and around the island. “As the statistics show, the dissemination of human resources to teaching the language to the future generation is not a problem,” Fernando highlighted. “However acquiring the necessary spoken English skills for a job in the service sector has become a problem amongst the students,” he divulged. He attributed the outdated methods of teaching English through grammar and translation, employed by most teachers, as reasons for the drawback.“The G.C.E Ordinary Level success rate has never topped the 50% mark for English,” Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga who also spoke at the gathering stated. He pointed out that the illiteracy rate amongst certain teachers as one of the main causes. “Yet we have positive stories as well,” Weeratunga elaborated citing the example of the Katuwela School in the North Central Province, where all 400 children attending the school have the speaking and writing ability of English, as a result of the hard work of a dedicated individual who strived for change. “All we need is to elevate potential and break the language barrier. That is the only way we can expand investment,” he added. All speakers highlighted the need for a bilingual society to compete with the current global trends. The programme titled “English as a Life Skill” is one such step taken towards gearing up youth for the job market by teaching them job-oriented English language skills. “India is one country that overcame this challenge and has rapidly developed in recent years in the sectors of IT and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPOs),” it was stated. The programme is a far sighted approach to give a larger populace of Sri Lanka the opportunity to benefit from English language skills,” High Commissioner of India Alok Prasad told the gathering. The modern methods of listen, speak, read and write used in India to teach English are to be incorporated to the local teaching trends as part of the initiative. Accordingly, the services of eleven leading English language institutions from Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi along with 275 private institutions which teach English across Sri Lanka, including the North and East, will be utilized for the purpose as a first step beginning this month. Secondly, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad will arrive in Sri Lanka to launch the Center of English Language Training. “This institute will see the transferring of the Indian teaching methods to Sri Lanka and train 30 English teachers as master trainers who will in turn spread their knowledge,” Fernando added. A result of this initiative will be the recruitment of 54,000 persons who have acquired the necessary skills into jobs in the IT sector and the BPOs. The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Ministry of Tourism and Sri Lankan Airlines are supporters of the initiative.

Arming the people with a weapon of choice

Courtesy http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/04/23/fea01.asp

President’s initiative on English as a Life Skill:

Lucien Rajakarunanayake

It was in the 70s, around that time of the first JVP uprising that the term “kaduva” (sword) became fashionable among youth to refer to a knowledge of English, that was then, as it is now, the preserve of a very small minority of Sri Lankans, transcending all divisions of ethnicity, faith and caste and is bound by the benefits of high income and economic advantage.

They saw the knowledge of English as a weapon used by these segments of society to gain advantage over those who lacked knowledge of it due to the harsh realities of our system of education, and viewed both the “kaduva” and those who wielded it in day to day discourse with both envy and anger.

The problems of English Language knowledge and education in Sri Lanka, as we see it today, date back to the time when in the early 1940s the State Council adopted a resolution by JR Jayewardene, supported by many educationists and nationalist politicians of the day, to make education in the Mother Tongue - mainly Sinhala and Tamil - the medium of instruction in our schools.

This was indeed progressive, and was in keeping with the learned thinking of the day, with its advantage indicated by the economic success of countries such as Japan, Russia, Korea, Germany and France.

However, this move also led to the separation of the two main ethnic groups - the Sinhalese and Tamils - from the very beginning of education; the consequences of which were obviously not foreseen by those who correctly championed education in the Mother Tongue.

The situation, vis-a-vis English Language education and knowledge, was made worse after the adoption of Sinhala Only as the Official Language after 1956, with the Reasonable Use of Tamil being a dead letter in law, and the subsequent shift to Sinhala and Tamil as the medium of instruction for higher education.

The consequence of all this is the large segment of the population that lacks proper training in the use of the English Language, and the huge demand for knowledge of the former colonial mater’s language in the country, best seen by the proliferation of tutories claiming to teach both spoken and written English, with largely dubious results.

In contrast, our immediate neighbour India is today emerging as the new storehouse of English in the world and is also the predominant English Language teacher to the world, with reliable projections that the income to India from teaching of English would soon match its income for the IT industry.

Sri Lanka has now to catch up what it lost in more than six decades since we began compulsory education in the Mother Tongue. This is no easy challenge as we have neither the infrastructure nor the trained personnel to teach English to the large numbers who are eager to learn it, despite the efforts of obscurantist politicians and blinkered nationalists to keep its knowledge as the privilege of a very few.

Major initiative

It is in this context that the Government launches this week its major initiative on English Language Skills, which seeks to rapidly alter the situation in the country and enable both the people and the country to benefit from the knowledge of English.

This initiative by President Mahinda Rajapaksa known as - English as a Life Skill - seeks within three years to provide 50,000 persons with job-oriented Spoken/Communicative English Skills for employment in services such as the IT related Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry and other service industries that presently do not source investment opportunities in Sri Lanka largely because of the absence of adequate and appropriate English language skills in the country.

In the long term it seeks to generate the appropriate momentum for the widespread enhancement of Spoken/Communicative English language skills in the country.

President Rajapaksa in his address at the opening of the new session of Parliament in November 2005 said: “If we are building our country we should look at this century in which we live and make our national plans accordingly. It is with such a broad vision that we should formulate education policies.

Investments

“I appeal to this August assembly not to consider our interventions for the sake of education as relief assistance but as investments for the sake of the country.

“During the recent election campaign I was able to read the UNP’s election manifesto. I wish to state sincerely that in their manifesto there were several valuable points that should be appreciated. Among them the concept “English for All” drew my attention.

“I wish to inform you that I hope to implement the concept with some revisions while giving Members of the main Opposition the credit for it. I wish to remind that according to Mahinda Chinthana, good things cannot be measured in terms of political colours.” It is keeping with this policy of formulation and implementing of national policy on education to suit the needs of this century that the new initiative on English Language Skills is being launched this week.

The Presidential Task Force on “English as a Life Skill” states that in the globalised environment of the contemporary world, English has emerged as the global language of education and trade, and is a common medium that provides educational mobility and credit transferability across the world.

It notes that with the fundamental shift in employment opportunity, whereby the State is no longer the major employer, the private sector its effort to survive in a globalised environment, is increasingly insisting on English as a basic skill for employment.

It is in recognition of the responsibility of the government to respond with urgency to these rapidly changing market dynamics, that President Rajapaksa, initiated moves to plan and facilitate programmes and activities to enhance English language skills in the country.

Fast track

What was envisaged was that a fast track programme of activities for immediate needs of investment to be planned and implemented with a sense of urgency, while a parallel slower track programme would also be implemented to meet the wider needs of English education.

From the outset, in keeping with the strategy of the government that development should go to every province and not be the preserve of the Western Province, the new initiative will make English accessible to all districts of the country in an equitable way.

As the report by Sunimal Fernando, Convener of the Presidential Task Force on “English as a Life Skill” states, “except in the small number of fee levying private and international schools accessed by the children of affluent families, and in an exceptionally few government schools, the quality of English teaching in the mainstream government schools (which constitute the backbone of the education system) is extremely low.

The minimum qualification for recruitment as an English teacher is a credit pass in English based on a taught syllabus in the GCE (Ordinary Level) examination conducted in the national languages at grade 10 level. A very poor quality English language product is therefore delivered to students in the schools. (By contrast, in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu the minimum qualification for recruitment as an English teacher is a B. Ed with specialisation in English, in an examination conducted in English).

Research by the Public Survey and Research Unit (PSRU) of the Presidential Secretariat, shows that Sri Lanka today has nearly 21,000 so-called English teachers teaching English in the government primary and secondary schools. In addition, there are as many as 1,690 private tutoring institutes spread across the country teaching English, among other subjects, with most of these not registered anywhere.

Although the standards of English teaching in these tutories is no better than what prevails in the schools, in the absence of a better product, parents send their children to these English classes as they link the future career of their children to their skill in English. There are many youth too who seek English language education in these places in the hope of better job opportunities.

This shows that in a small country of 20 million people there are nearly 21,000 government teachers teaching English in the schools and another 1,690 private teaching institutes teaching English.

This indicates two things: First that there is a huge demand for the learning of English, and second there is so much English teaching going on but producing only a very small number of persons able to speak in English and thereby qualify for jobs in the service sector: There are very few with English speaking skills that investors in the BPO industry in our closest neighbour, who are looking for investment opportunities abroad for a variety of reasons, don’t even think of starting any investments in Sri Lanka.

Teaching methods

It is evident there is something substantially wrong with the quality of our teacher base in both the private and public sectors, which is closely tied up with the kind of teaching methods and courses used by our English teachers.

Our mainstream teachers still try to induct the learner into the English language through grammar, structure and translation, unlike institutions in India which take the learner into the English language through listening and talking, leading only then to reading and writing.

Our methods create a fear of the language in the learner - a fear of talking - while the alternate methods make the learner interested in the language and not frightened of it. The latter students first learn to talk the language through which any possible fear of the language is straightaway dispelled.

The Presidential Initiative aims at bringing about a ’silent revolution’ in English teaching methods and course contents in Sri Lanka through a ‘teaching technology transfer’ from India.

For the government schools/government teachers - the English and Foreign Language University (EFLU) of Hyderabad will be associated in setting up a Centre of English Language Training (CELT) in Sri Lanka; while at the same time training 30 Sri Lankan government school English teachers as Master Trainers through a three-month Special Training Course for them at Hyderabad. They will work at CELT to take the new teaching methods and courses to the government sector teacher base in the country.

For the private institutes teaching English, the new initiative will provide every incentive for joint educational enterprises that will introduce new teaching methods and course content.

It is envisaged that the Sri Lankan and Indian investors in English Language Teaching who will be attracted to this programme will succeed in reaching out to the large number of private tutoring institutes teaching English in Sri Lanka and be the catalyst that helps produce a sizeable community of persons with spoken /communicative English skills for gainful employment in the BPO sector particular and the expanding IT related service sector in general.

There is thus an immediate need for radically upgrading the English teacher base in the country, both in the government sector and in the unregulated private teaching sector.

English teaching methods that are in practice are highly outdated and state-of-the-art spoken / communicative English teaching methodologies are few - if at all - and far between.

Mainstream teaching methods and course contents have evolved in a manner appropriate for teaching English to persons from homes and environments that already use English. They have been found to be largely inappropriate for teaching English to persons from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes and environments - mainly those in rural environments.

There is an urgent need for the upgrading of teaching materials, course contents and books for the use of students in the context of modern developments in the field of English Language Teaching. Distance learning of English through IT and teacher training using IT based distance learning methods need to be introduced.

There is the need for regulation of content of the courses offered, syllabus and teaching methods, as well as a certification system for English teachers, all of which are being addressed by the Presidential Task Force.

The Presidential initiative on English will also seek to establish a nationally recognised English proficiency examination that is conducted on a set syllabus by a recognised institution such as the Department of Examinations - other than English as a subject in the GCE (Ordinary) and GCE (Advanced) level examination - towards which English training programmes, especially in the widespread tutoring industry functioning across the country can be directed; whereby uniform standards can be maintained, the public made aware of the required standards and service, and learners can obtain a certificate of value which could help them move upwards at the end of their course of study.

The Presidential Task Force has successfully sought access to the resources available in India by presenting Sri Lanka’s requirements to the ‘Joint India - Sri Lanka Committee for the Provision of Assistance for the Development of Education in Sri Lanka’ at its first meeting held in Colombo on December 11 and 12, 2007.

The Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India declared that all required technical assistance requested by the Special Presidential Task Force will be provided to Sri Lanka.

Collaboration with India

The Presidential Initiative will adopt an aggressive enterprise driven approach for the attainment of its target. Its ‘fast track’ will traverse the private educational sector consisting of about 1620 small and medium tutoring institutes teaching English among other subjects, The outcome of this is the collaboration with English teaching institutes from India who will be coming here to meet potential business partners from April 23 to 25, 2008 at a ‘Mela’ or Business Exchange organised by the Board of Investment (BOI) in collaboration with the Public Survey and Research Unit (PSRU) of the Presidential Secretariat.

Over 200 Sri Lankan teaching institutes have requested an opportunity to meet the 10 potential business partners coming from India with the objective of exploring the possibility of setting up joint educational enterprises with them.

The objective of the Joint-Enterprise Strategy is to make possible the upgrading of the teaching methods, teacher skills and course contents of the private tutoring / tuition sector.

This can be reached through the re-training of their teachers by the Joint Enterprises and the franchising of the successful job-oriented communicative / spoken English courses developed in India, suitably modified for our country, via the Joint Enterprises to the private educational institutes across the country. These joint ventures will have the advantage of BOI status in investment.

As this initiative gets under way, there is cause for reasonable expectation that the teaching of English in Sri Lanka will be properly regulated and while providing suitable candidates for the BPO sector in the short-term, will in the longer term provide Sri Lankans with good access to English in the competitive world, where the knowledge of English is in great demand today.

The opportunity will soon be opened for a wider section of our population to be knowledgeable and fluent in English, unlike the small number who had access to this privileged tongue when British rule ended.

The “kaduwa” will then not be the weapon of a few but the handy weapon of choice of the many.

Courtesy: http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/04/22/fea01.asp
‘English as a Life Skill’: Landmark job-oriented Presidential Initiative
Geoff WIJESINGHE

President Mahinda Rajapaksa with great foresight and deep understanding of the problems faced by Sri Lanka due to lopsided, archaic methods in the teaching of English has embarked on a highly laudable and pragmatic initiative in keeping with its current global use as a principal means of communication, and in so doing will pay the way for providing highly-productive employment in both the public and private sectors throughout the country.
The President-inspired project will get off the ground on April 23 when a three-day ‘Business Mela’ on the teaching of job-oriented English language skills commences at Hotel Galadari, Colombo, organized by the Board of Investment (BOI) in collaboration with the Public Survey and Research Unit (PSRU) of the Presidential Secretariat.
Eleven highly successful institutes in teaching job-oriented spoken English from India, a country fast qualifying to be the lead country in this field, are listed to participate in the Mela.

They are: W.O.R.L.D. Trust, Zeal: Speak Easy: Centre for Better English, Green Book Learning Solutions, Genuine Education Learning Systems (Pvt) Ltd, VETA: VetaCorp-Amoha Education (Pvt) Ltd, E Square English Academy (Pvt) Ltd, Aspire Human Capital Management (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Sanskar School of Etiquette & Career Development (Pvt) Ltd School of Language & Communication, Gateway2uk Education (India Office) and Rayat & Bahra Institute of Leadership Training.

Indian help
Around 200 Sri Lankan teaching institutes are expected to attend this Mela, which is designed to encourage the forging of partnerships with the Indian educational institutes.
One such partnership has already been forged, between the E Square English Academy of Chennai, one of the leading English language training academies in India with 30 centres, and Easy English (Pvt.) Ltd. of Colombo.
Easy English Chief Kishan Karunaratne said that today the ability to communicate in English is the key to employability. The service sector including industries such as tourism, banking, telecom, business process outsourcing, information technology and insurance, is creating the most employment opportunities in the world today. In this scenario, formal education and technical knowledge are not sufficient and a working knowledge of English is essential.
A strategic framework and fast track activity plan for the initiative has been prepared by Presidential Advisor Sunimal Fernando, Coordinator/Convener of the Special Presidential Task Force on English as a Life Skill on the directions of the President.
Fernando has had the strong support of Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, who is dedicated to the field of education and has been fired with enthusiasm for the Presidential Initiative on job-oriented English life skills, a new concept that will help solve a burning problem in this country. “Lalith is very much the wind beneath the wings,” says Sunimal.
I asked Sunimal Fernando why Sri Lanka has sought Indian assistance in uplifting the standard of English in keeping with global trends.

“Geoff, you were a well-known cricketer in your day. Cricket was introduced to the world by England. In those days cricket was an English game. But, today it takes the form of an essentially South Asian game, which also happens to be played in England. Likewise, the English language was introduced to the world by the English and was the language of the English people.
But, today, English takes the form of a global language which also happens to be spoken in England.
So the contours of the English speaking world have been radically changed and India has emerged as the country which now has perhaps the most successful methods for teaching job-oriented spoken / communicative English: For teaching ‘English as a Life Skill’ - English without the social and cultural baggage with which it was delivered to us in colonial times and after”.
The Presidential Initiative on the enhancement of job-oriented English language skills in the country will encourage English to be taught to learners not only as it should be spoken, but in keeping with the cultures of Sri Lanka devoid of the old British colonial Pukka Sahib mentality and flavour, with England as the focal point. This is very important. We should not pollute the English taught in our country with the stuff and nonsense of that old colonial ‘ruling class’ outlook which is now in the limbo of things gone by.

Diversity, innovation
“Today, we seek to teach English in our schools and institutions without incurring damage to our national cultures, traditions and customs - not the Queen’s English as in the past but English as a Life Skill, as it is in India.” Fernando adds that the Presidential Initiative will welcome technical cooperation towards this end from other countries too, such as the UK, USA, Australia and Canada among others.
“We will encourage the stakeholders of the Initiative to learn from any source and to look at a range of teaching systems and materials. Our focus will be to ‘keep doors open’, to encourage diversity and innovation and to enable ‘a thousand flowers to bloom’ in the fields of teaching methods, course content, learning modes and supportive publications that will help take ‘English as a Life Skill’ to our people”.
Many scholars are of the view that the standard of English in Sri Lanka during the British period was substantially higher than what it was in the neighbouring South Asian countries. This reality, though true, was the exclusive preserve of a small urban elite that controlled, together with the British Raj, the political, economic and administrative institutions of the country.
The decision to make the national languages the medium of instruction in Sri Lanka was indeed a progressive and a modern decision, as indicated by the economic success of countries like Japan, Korea, Germany and France.
But the post internet period of development demands much more curricular space and infrastructure for English in view of its unquestioned emergence as the global medium of communication and the key to the treasure house of global knowledge and employment.
The ‘English as a Life Skill’ initiative will be officially launched shortly by President Rajapaksa at a point in time when several of the activities listed in the Fast Track Activity Plan are about to be made operational.
The President will formally launch the initiative in the presence of the founding father of India’s IT/BPO industry Shri N.R. Narayana Murthy, the founder and chief mentor of INFOSYS who together with the President will announce and explain the employment and investment boom that could follow the successful implementation of the Presidential initiative.
Job market
While a launch of this nature will provide the potential learners a perspective of a job market that could well be available to them, it will also set in motion a dialogue between the potential supply of skills by the country’s education sector and the potential demand for skills by the service sector.
The goal of the initiative in the short term is the enhancement within three years of 50,000 persons with job-oriented spoken/communicative English skills for employment in services such as the IT related BPO service industry among other service industries that presently do not source investment opportunities in Sri Lanka largely because of the absence of adequate and appropriate spoken/communicative English language skills, or in already existing businesses that are desperately searching for persons with such language skills for employment.
In the long term, the strategic framework and fast track activity plan of the Presidential initiative will generate the appropriate momentum for the widespread enhancement of spoken/communicative English language skills in the country.
The Fundamental shift in employment opportunity has resulted in the State no longer being the main employer. The private sector employer in his efforts to survive in the global environment is insisting on English as a basic skill for employment in an increasingly globalised environment.
Task Force
Recognising the responsibility of the government to respond with urgency to these rapidly changing market dynamics, the President recently appointed this Task Force to strategise, plan and facilitate programmes and activities to enhance English language skills in the country.
President Rajapaksa’s directive was also that the benefit should accrue not only to the relatively more developed Colombo and Gampaha districts, but should be made accessible to all districts of the country in an equitable way.
A special appeal has been made to the electronic and print media of the country and to the private business sector to become powerful stakeholders of this critically important national development initiative, which the President has launched with a sense of commitment and national responsibility.
At present, except in a small number of fee levying private and international schools, accessed by the children of affluent families, and in an exceptionally few government schools, the quality of English teaching in the mainstream is extremely low.
According to the plan, there are about 1,623 private tutoring institutes teaching English among other subjects spread throughout the country. A database of these institutes has been prepared by the Public Survey and Research Unit of the Presidential Secretariat.
English classes are very popular in these totally unregulated private institutions. But the quality of English teaching in this sector is no better than what prevails in the schools.
Therefore, there is an immediate need for radically upgrading the English teacher base in the country, both in the government and the unregulated teaching sectors.
Today’s English teaching methods in the government and private educational mainstream in the country are outdated, and state-of-the-art spoken/communicative English teaching methodologies are few and far between.
The current methods and course content are inappropriate for teaching English to those from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes and environments. Sunimal’s experience is that in our country English is still taught through grammar, structure and translation.
“These are the methods through which we were taught dead languages like Sanskrit, Pali, Latin and Greek in our days. Through the application of these teaching methods one acquires some ability to read and write the language with a dictionary by one’s side; and at the same time a huge big fear of speaking the language.
In the last 10 years or so, India’s English teaching methods have undergone a radical transformation. Students are first taught to listen and talk in English and only after that to read and write the language”.
The Presidential initiative has sought the assistance of India with whom we have so much social and cultural affinities to transfer these radically transformed job-oriented spoken / communicative English teaching techniques and course content to Sri Lanka.
The booming Indian BPO industry is looking for investment opportunities in other developing countries. For Sri Lanka to be an investment destination for Indian BPOs, spoken English skills of the required standard will have to be available here in abundance.
By transferring to Sri Lanka, the English teaching skills and course content developed in India itself for its IT related service industries, the Presidential Initiative seeks to create the required talent pool for Indian BPOs in particular and other IT related service industries in general to invest in our country.
The Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India has declared that all required assistance for this ‘educational technology transfer’ will be provided. Similar technical cooperation from Britain, Australia, USA and Canada will be much appreciated by the Presidential Initiative.
A vast majority of private tutories have expressed a desire to upgrade the quality of their teachers, teaching methods and course content and shift their focus towards the delivery of job-oriented spoken/communicative English skills to their students.
Following the Business Mela, joint educational enterprises are expected to develop their business plans and harness this large market.
Distance learning
Emphasis is also being placed on distance learning. In a developing country like Sri Lanka, where 80 per cent of households have television, TV offers itself as a very viable and powerful tool of distance learning.
At the request of the Task Force, technical collaboration has already been offered by a number of Indian institutions to Sri Lankan TV networks that require technical input to produce and telecast modular type job-oriented spoken/communicative English courses.
The Government of India has agreed to support the Presidential initiative to take the new English teaching methods and course content to the government schools where the vast majority of the nearly 21,000 English teachers cannot speak English.
The English and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad popularly known as EFLU, India’s Center of Excellence for the teaching of English, will set up a Centre for English Language Training (CELT) in Sri Lanka, similar to what they have done in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
Again with Indian Government support, 30 of our best English teachers from the Government sector will be selected and trained as Master Trainers at EFLU over a three month period to assist the CELT re-train the government English teachers in our schools.
Immediately after the Business Mela is concluded, Prof. Abhai Maurya, Vice Chancellor of EFLU will be arriving in Sri Lanka on April 29 to arrange these activities with the Education Ministry and the Presidential Secretariat.
With the implementation of this dynamic initiative by President Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka will take a giant stride forward in not only keeping in step with the rest of the world, but also ensuring that the country forges ahead in economic and educational development.

Visit www.batuwangala.org to see the Batuwangala eVillage website. Batuwangala blog is at http://batuwangala.wordpress.com/.

Batuwangala from Southern Province is the newest addition to eVillage - Sri Lanka network. Await more news about Batuwangala eVillage soon. Visit the Batuwangala Public School Website at http://www.batuwangala.sch.lk/

Opatha from Southern Province is the newest addition to eVillage - Sri Lanka network. Await more news about Opatha eVillage soon. Visit the Opatha Public School Website at http://www.opathamv.sch.lk/ and village web page at http://www.opathamv.sch.lk/htdoc/Aphea%20Gama.html

A good course on photojournalism is to start at INGIRN in April. The course will be conducted in Colombo during weekends. It would be great if we can get at least one youth trained from each eVillage. Course fee is 15,000 LKR. Your support is welcome. If we have professional photojournalists in eVillages, they can help develop the villages by becoming citizen journalists. They already do a lot but with a professional course they will be doing more. This will be an investment rather than an expenditure for the rural villages in Sri Lanka. There are 5 eVillages in the Phase I of the project. Since the selected youth has to spend on traveling, accomadation, food, etc. as well, your support for the course fee will be appriciated.

The details of the course is given below. Source: Sunday Times.

Ingrin Institute offers courses in photojournalism

By Tilak Premakumara

Ingrin, the well-known institute of printing & graphics, has decided to offer a certificate course in photojournalism and this move is timely when the print media is expanding with several new newspapers appearing in the market. The lack of such a professional training course has been felt for a long time. A limited number of photography courses have been available in the country, but none were specifically designed for photojournalism. As such, Sri Lankan photojournalists usually have had to learn on the job, often leaving them with gaps in their knowledge.

Ingrin, a semi-government institution under the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Training in collaboration with INGRIN of the Netherlands, has been offering a successful series of courses for the printing and packaging industry, including desktop publishing and certificate courses in Photoshop and scanning, Quark ExPress, Illustrator and Advance Photoshop. As this knowledge is in demand by the print media, many students find employment in the country’s newspaper companies.

Many photographers find Photoshop a useful tool in photofinishing and retouching etc. Therefore, students undertaking the photojournalism course can easily go on to the INGRIN Photoshop course, which is designed to aid image manipulation. It will also help artists, layout people and other professionals. It’s not provided as part of the photojournalism course but will be a separate entity.

While the emphasis will be on photojournalism, students will be taught the basics of other disciplines of photography - such as portraiture, landscapes and still lifes. Introductory lectures in aspects of commercial photography such as weddings and fashion will be part of the course.

The course will be conducted by Gamini Akeemana, a writer and photojournalist with over two decades of experience in newspapers. He is currently a full-time feature writer and columnist for the Daily Mirror.

He is a gifted writer who has won the National Arts Council award for literature as well as the Gratiaen Prize, but his personal obsession with photography has led him to cover all aspects of photojournalism, including war reportage.

His enthusiasm for photography has driven him to explore disciplines which had very few followers since the 1980s, such as black and white, colour transparencies as well as macro photography. In addition, he has an extensive knowledge of photographic history and masters of the medium.

He will be giving slide demonstrations during the lectures, and there will be several workshops, both indoor and outdoor. The emphasis will be on the practical aspects. Students will be using colour negatives, black & white negatives as well as transparencies in their practical work.

For further inquiries contact the Marketing Division 011-242-1846, Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphics, 290, D. R. Wije-wardene Mawatha, Colombo 10. The writer is Director of Studies, Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphics Sri Lanka Ltd.