Arming the people with a weapon of choice

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.