Bilingual education in Sri Lanka - Part I:

Bilingual education through self-directed learning

G H ASOKA

At various stages of their lives, people use different ways of learning reflecting various learning strategies they prefer according to their

various learning styles. Human beings do not always need a teacher and do not need to be over dependent on teachers despite the fact that role of the teacher in any society is indispensable, inevitable and invaluable: human beings informally learn a lot in their physical and social environments to enrich their knowledge and experience tacitly.

A person, as a learner, can be self-directed in different ways at any stage of his/her development in education and life. Initially self directed

learning had been identified and recommended for encouraging preferably adult learners. Yet it has been revealed through research that self-directed learning can be made common even for the young by introducing its various techniques selectively for them depending on their age-appropriate and grade-appropriate individual capacities.

Use of self-directed learning is quite obvious in bilingual education both as a process and a product. The Islandwide Needs Survey conducted by the National Institute of Education in 2007 in Sri Lanka on bilingual education has unexpectedly noticed how successful bilingual learners have become self-directed and how they have maintained their self-directedness in their studies in bilingual education irrespective of the fact that they, their parents and teachers have faced a lot of challenges. This is one among many secrets behind success of bilingual learners in the country mostly over their peers in monolingual education.

Bilingual education in Sri Lanka

Bilingual education was introduced to the Sri Lankan system of education in its recent history in 2001 commencing it from GCE (A/L) classes, and then since 2002, the opportunity has been expanded introducing it to the classes from Grade six onwards. By the end of 2009, Education Ministry has been able to implement bilingual education in 601 schools and targets to increase that number up to 800 and 1, 000 by the end of 2010 and 2011 respectively.

The bilingual education program currently implemented in Sri Lanka allows learners from their Grade six onwards to learn a set of subjects (recommended through the circular 2008/12) in learners’ L2 (English) and the rest in one of the national languages (either in Sinhala or Tamil). The subjects which read primodal social institutions are read only in national languages. In government schools, primary education is available compulsorily in national languages. Thus two languages are used as media of instruction parallel and consecutively in bilingual learners’ education. This situation has provided learners to be multilingual and multiliterate or minimum bilingual or biliterate.

According to the Three Year Master Plan collaboratively developed on bilingual education by the Education Ministry, the vision of the program in Sri Lanka is ‘widening horizons through language diversity to explore the world’ with the mission, ‘empowering future generations to be multilingual (minimum bilingual) using English as a tool representing Sri Lankan identity’.

The objectives of the program are five in number

1) ‘To develop social harmony and social cohesion in a pluralistic society using English as a link language both locally and globally,

2) To provide opportunity to all students at secondary level, irrespective of socio-economic and regional disparities,

3) To acquire proficiency of both first language and English as a second

Language without jettisoning Sinhala and Tamil as national and official languages,

4) To enable students to use local languages and English as a source and a means to reach knowledge society through information literacy’ and

5) ‘To link academic aspects with socio-economic political and cultural

aspects of the world of work through national languages and the link language at local and global levels’.

This program of bilingual education, since its inception, has generally been called ‘English Medium education’ though it was indeed bilingual education. This misuse of words has done a great damage when the subject is discussed in terms of educational aspects irrespective of appropriacy and timely need of bilingual education as bilingual education: thus the majority of the research so far conducted under this discipline has been run under the wrong term, ‘English medium education’, and therefore the literature, suggestions and recommendations presented, described and prescribed in line with the wrong term are mostly irrelevant and misleading.

‘English medium education’ is another type of monolingual education which allows learners to study completely in English from their beginning of studies. This sort of education does not benefit the country and its future: it also seriously damages Sri Lankan identity, culture and their existence by devalorizing Sinhala and Tamil, and ultimately leading to loss of our local languages and national integration and national integrity. At the same time, such type of education negatively influences learners’ cognition and knowledge displaying its negative outcomes in terms of creativity, critical thinking and flexibility of mental capacity (metacognitive skills).

Nevertheless, the bilingual education program implemented in the Sri Lankan school system is expected to achieve balanced bilingualism and biliteracy in their additive aspects. Thus use of English as a tool is emphasized to reach developmental goals mingling local aspects with international aspects and its community.

The writer is the chief project officer and Head of the Unit of Language Coordination, project leader of Bilingual Education, Faculty of Languages, Humanities & Social Sciences, National Institute of Education, Maharagama.