English As a Life Skill

Training in India for 41 teachers

COLOMBO: Forty one English teachers from Government schools left the country yesterday as Indian Government scholarship holders to be trained as trainers at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, India.

This is part of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's 'English as a Life Skill' initiative which seeks to take job-oriented Spoken / Communicative English Skills to youth islandwide.

Four teachers have been selected from every province with the exception of the Western, Central and Southern Provinces from which six teachers have been selected.

The three-month Training of Trainers course that has been specially designed for the Sri Lankan teachers at EFLU Hyderabad - India's Centre of Excellence for the teaching of English - is a response of the Government of India to the President's Special Drive to take job-oriented English language skills to the village youth across the country in keeping with the promise held out in 'Mahinda Chintana'.

The world's most successful methodologies and course contents in the teaching of job-oriented Spoken / Communicative English have been developed in the Southern States of India - Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh - in the last 10 years.

With the support of the Indian Government, President Rajapaksa seeks to bring about an 'English Teaching Technology Transfer' from India to Government schools in all parts of Sri Lanka to enhance job opportunities for rural youth.

"These 41 government teachers will be the first set of torch bearers of the President's drive to take job-oriented Spoken English Skills to the youth in even the most distant parts of our country," says Sunimal Fernando the Presidential Advisor who is coordinating the Initiative.