Bilingual education and religion based education in Sri Lanka
G.H. Asoka
Bilingual education, which has been implemented in the Government
school system in Sri Lanka since 2001 has not been totally a new
practice in the country.
Samanera Bhikkus attending pirivena. File photo |
Bilingual education was prominent in pre colonial era, colonial era
and post colonial era, too. When Buddhism based religious education was
introduced in the 3 BC, there was the need for bilingual education.
It had been tackled in such a way addressing and reflecting
principles of bilingual education and its related theoretical principles
in terms of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and
linguistically important content such as phonology, morphology, syntax,
semantics and pragmatics though such modern terms had not been used in
describing its instructional design.
These facts are evident when scrutinizing documents on religious
education and religion based education in the ancient Sri Lanka with the
sole purpose of facilitating laymen to direct them towards “the right
way of living”.
Currently the need for developing plurilingual and multilingual
capacities of Buddhist priests, at a minimum in two languages (in one
locally powerful language and the other one in an internationally
powerful language) is essential to proliferate Buddhism.
Today the world population wants to be aware of Buddhism, its
philosophy, cognition-awakening practices through meditation by linking
and contrasting Buddhist practices with novel practices and discoveries
of science.
This current global appeal can be addressed through promoting
communication using at least one international language.
Thus Sri Lankan Buddhist priests’ capacity in explaining, clarifying,
describing and critically commenting on Buddhism can be supported
through promoting their plurilingual capacities across bilingual
education.
This cannot be done by teaching English as a subject alone because of
the acquisition-poor-environment for using English in day-to-day life.
Development of both general and academic English together by priests
through bilingual education would arm them to face future challenges in
communication in multilingual settings.
Hence bilingual education would be a multifaceted, versatile approach
to fulfil communication needs through development of plurilingual
talents of Buddhist priests. |