English for the poor

Rauf Sheldrake

Though children of elite families don’t have a problem with English with their family background, frequent usage even with advanced access to expensive coaching, those in the rural areas are not so fortunate to have inherited such backgrounds or democratic access to English.

Overlooked

It clearly appears that visionaries of the past and decision makers of past regimes have certainly overlooked the English education of rural children, even though it was proliferating around the world.

The rationale at that time could be that we wanted to reinvigorate and strengthen the use of our national languages Sinhala and Tamil which were overlooked by the colonialists. It certainly enabled us to protect and reinforce our own local languages, religion, music, art, dance and our local way of thinking, speaking and doing things, though it certainly opened the knowledge and income gaps between the peasant and the elite.

Though this decision to correct what the former colonists did benefited us in resurrecting our ancient culture, traditions and values, it certainly had a detrimental effect on rural and marginalized sections of our society. This is because parents of these rural children were given only one option due to poverty (free provisions), that is to base all their education in one of the official national languages - Sinhala or Tamil. Teaching in English was phased out systematically even though there were some teachers from the British era who could have rescued the poor.

Background

However, children born with connections to the usage of English through those who had worked with the diminishing British influence in the country and the elite families in Colombo and some major towns were fortunate to have picked up the language from their parents.

These young people secured good placements with lucrative salaries and benefits in urban areas and abroad especially in the Middle Eastern countries while those who did not have access to education in the English language fended up with low paid jobs in State institutions, abhorring services sector, agriculture, in the limited business community, garments and other rudimentary industry.

During an inevitable economic crisis due to terrorism in the country, financial crises in the Middle East or a recession in the West, those who are unable to secure well or reasonably remunerated jobs always suffer.

This deplorable situation has been brought about by politicians of the past who somehow manipulated and wrested control over their voters to keep voting them to power, by promising to protect the local Sinhala language.

Introducing English

This is the reason why the present Government is trying to rectify the situation by attempting to introduce English this year. Former leaders misled the poor, the underprivileged rural voter by giving them free rations and managed to keep them less educated to prevent them from coming to the urban or developed areas to replace the elite children who were handed over the power, wealth and the facilities to keep controlling the backward, rural, less educated voter bank. This held back the growth of the country’s human resource competencies and the earning potential of low income earners compared to countries in the South Asian region.

Exceptions

Though there are certainly some exceptions where some rural less educated youth stormed their way into power, performed well at the marketplace with admirable business acumen or struggled their way into the intellectual society in the urban areas, the legs of most of others in the interior areas are pulled back without the necessary English language skills to progress beyond a certain level.

While the young people who were somehow connected to the elite, ruling class, mercantile or former British educated society in the urban areas were not inhibited the opportunity, to teach English at various tutories to the underprivileged rural or less educated but eager children, they have certainly taken advantage of the situation by letting demand and supply determine how much it costs the poor.

Now that the damage one is apparent, it is up to public officials and leaders of the future to envision a long - term plan to deter this kind of phenomenon from happening at least in the future.