English and IT as instruments of rural empowerment

The following is the full text of the speech made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the ceremonial launch of ‘2009 - Year of English and Information Technology at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday.

“I am very happy to take part in this event that celebrates the launch of the Year of English and IT and to formally declare 2009 the Year of English and IT in our country.

In the ‘Mahinda Chintana’, my election manifesto, which received the endorsement of the people, we recognized the importance of rapidly creating a knowledge society in Sri Lanka.

To make the idea of the global village, more meaningful to our people, we stressed the importance of linking the villages and townships in all the provinces and districts of our country with the outside world of knowledge.

Proficiency in the English language

And to achieve this objective, the ‘Mahinda Chintana’ lays emphasis on the unmistakable need to urgently equip the people, especially the youth, with proficiency in the English language on the one side and to provide them with access to computers and internet facilities, through the rapid development of use of information technology, on the other.

English and IT shall therefore be used by our Government as instruments of rural empowerment; as powerful tools that could make the villages of our country a meaningful part of the global village.

In the use of IT for rural empowerment, we can be proud of the success achieved in the past few years. Whereas in November 2005, only five per cent of the population had literacy in IT, by the end of 2008, the IT literacy rate had increased to as much as 23% with considerable progress in the rural areas.

The establishment of 579 Nenasalas or rural tele-centres and 2,500 IT labs in schools, has been largely instrumental for this increase.

Fifty per cent IT literacy

Our goal is to increase the number of Nenasalas to 1,000 and to reach 50 per cent IT literacy by the end of 2010. As for English, which we recognize to be another important tool of rural empowerment, its penetration across the country and especially, into the rural hinterland has been held back by constraints of a very different nature.

English was and still continues to be perceived and delivered as a gateway to elite status and an emblem of class and privilege.

The curriculum and teaching methods followed in our country, which place importance not on the use of it for communication, but on its rules of grammar, and on perfect pronunciation, have only served to maintain it as the exclusive preserve of a selfish, privileged class and a tool of social repression.

The Presidential Task Force on English and IT has adopted several radical measures to transform English teaching method and curriculum in our schools to make the language user-friendly and less elitist.

Thus, English will progressively be perceived and delivered to the children of Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes, no more as a ‘subject’ but as a ‘tool of communication’, for speaking and for seeking knowledge and employment.

Our country is greatly inspired by the dramatic success of India in the fields of IT and English in recent years.

It is for this reason that we have turned to India in addition to other countries for technical support to strengthen our own endeavours. We are honoured by the presence today of Mr. Narayana Murthy, the ‘Father of IT in India’ and the Chairman and Mentor of the world famous ‘Infosys’.

His Special Address has given us a very interesting perspective on empowering rural people with knowledge in IT. We are confident that his association with our national initiative, which starts today will certainly continue into the future.

We are equally honoured by the presence of Professor Abhai Maurya, the Vice Chancellor of the English and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad, India’s Centre of Excellence for the Teaching of English.

He has already launched the process of re-training of our teachers in the delivery of ‘Spoken English’ to our schools with the generous assistance of the Indian government.

2009 is our country’s Year of English and IT. With the liberation of our people from the clutches of terrorism which destroyed our country for more than 25 years, 2009 will also be our country’s Year of Peace, our country’s Year of Reconciliation, and our Year of true Independence.

It promises to be the year in which all our people - irrespective of caste, race, locality, language or religion, - begin to march together, as the sons and daughters of Mother Lanka towards a common goal of development and prosperity.

Bi-lingual Sri Lankan society

When marching forward into the future as a single people, it is my view that the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people should engage with one another in each other’s language.

I therefore visualize for the future a bi-lingual Sri Lankan society. Individual program in this direction are already being implemented in the Ministries of Public Administration and Education with the facilitation of the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration.

However, I shall be directing my officials in the near future, to take steps to prepare a Comprehensive National Master Plan with disegregated Action Plans for realizing a bi-lingual public service and a bi-lingual nation within a specified but realistic time frame.

With the assistance of the Minister of Constitutional Affairs and National Integration, we will drive this programme with dedication and commitment till the desired results are achieved. English, on the other hand, will be our language to reach out to the world and access the global pool of knowledge and technology.

Tri-lingual Sri Lankan society

As the national initiative on English gathers momentum and achieves desired results, I visualize, in fact, a tri-lingual Sri Lankan society in the long run. Our Government’s policy framework, Mahinda Chintana, clearly lays down our policy on language.

The strong link between language and culture is recognized and respected. To the people of my country, Sinhala and Tamil are not mere tools of communication. They encapsulate our values and world-views, give expression to our inner feelings and define our cultural categories.

They embody the soul of our people. They confer to us our distinct identity. Therefore, the Presidential Task Force on English and IT will ensure that the national initiative should be designed in such a way that English is delivered purely as a ‘Life Skill’ that is desired for its utility value, as a vital tool of communication with the outside world of knowledge, and a skill that is required for employment.

We will ensure that there will be a complete break with the past, where in our country English was rolled out as a vehicle for creating disaffection towards our national cultures, national ethos and national identity, for alienating our people from their roots and for creating social and cultural divisions among them.

Future of peace and prosperity

The declaration of the Year of English and IT today is thus a benchmark which coincides with the end of terrorism and the clearing of the political space for the expression of the resolve of the Sri Lankan people to march together as one proud people towards a future of peace and prosperity.

In the global environment of today, English and IT are two essential tools for the achievement of our goal.

Marking the beginning of 2009 as a point of reference, the national initiative on English and IT will expand under my direction through a diversity of programs and activities.

Facilitated by the Presidential Task Force on English and IT, I call for this important national initiative the unstinted support and cooperation of all government ministries and agencies both central and provincial, the private business sector, which has most to gain from its success and civil society organizations interested in the development of the country.

I am confident that this national initiative will also draw the generous support of the international community.