Public-private partnership to train English teachers

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Government is looking at private/public partnerships to improve the quality of English teachers in the country.

The Government is now in the process of taking necessary steps to improve the quality of English teachers in the remote areas, Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said.

"It is the need of the hour to improve the quality of English teachers in the country to equip our younger generation with good English language skills," Minister Premajayantha told at a media briefing on the Council for Business with Britain's (CBB) ongoing English Language Teacher (ELT) training initiative.

This is being done in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the British Council and funded by HSBC Bank, which is part of their CSR projects.

This is a six month training program.

Minister Premajayantha said public and private sector partnerships of this nature will enable to produce high quality English teachers for the country, which will mainly benefit schools in the rural areas.

At present we have more than 20,000 teachers for the 4.1 million student population in the country, but their standards need to be improved on a regular basis, he said. Chairman CCC Anil Wijesinghe said that CBB had chosen English language as their principal CSR activity and the CBB have already chosen companies to sponsor teachers all over the country. CBB ELT training initiative has so far reached over 400 teachers and 24,000 pupils.

The initiative gives English language teachers the latest training to help them deliver modern, effective and interactive English language lessons that in turn improves the performance of students, he said.

Vice Chairman CBB and CEO HSBC Nick Nicolaou said HSBC Group's global Corporate Sustainability Program gives education high priority especially English language training for underprivileged children.

He said that they seek to open doors of opportunities for young people by helping to raise their academic achievements and improve their skills with formal and informal learning.

Hence the CBB ELT project was a natural fit to achieve their goals in Sri Lanka.

Country Director British Council Gill Westaway said this is a highly successful initiative and to encourage businesses to get involved and sponsor a teacher has been fully endorsed by the British High Commission in Colombo.