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Ten Year National Action Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka:

Redefining language

Nearly 90 percent of Sinhala speaking people cannot communicate in Tamil and cannot communicate effectively in English. Whereas 70 percent of Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka cannot communicate in Sinhala. But the new Presidential initiative on a trilingual Sri Lanka plans to change this.

A salient feature of the Presidential initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka is the redefinition of language. “The initiative will not promote Sinhala and Tamil as mere instruments of communication, but as a holistic cultural package,” said Presidential Advisor and Coordinator of the programme ‘English as a life skill’ and the initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka, Sunimal Fernando. “Language is an expression of culture. Knowledge of Tamil culture will facilitate empathy and affection for its culture in the Sinhala people and thereby encourage people to learn the Tamil language. The same goes for Sinhala.”

Sunimal Fernando Lalith Weeratunga

Under the trilingual initiative Sinhala and Tamil will be promoted as vehicles through which modern ideas, views, technologies and modern sciences among a host of other subjects could be discussed, discoursed and debated. English will be promoted as a life skill for occupation, employment, accessing knowledge and technology and for communicating with the rest of the world. English is basically a tool for communication.

Closely directed and guided by Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, the advisory committee of professors of Sinhala, Tamil and English appointed to assist the Presidential Secretariat in the Trilingual Initiative has turned up with the ninth draft. The Sinhala Tamil and English versions of the draft will be simultaneously uploaded on to the Presidential Secretariat website for public comment over a month.

The tenth draft, which will incorporate appropriate suggestions by the public, will be presented to the Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, who will discuss the tenth draft with the President. This will then be presented to the Cabinet. The views of the Cabinet will be incorporated to the final document and launched by the President as the 10 Year National Action Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka.

Funds will be allocated from the national budget to maintain the initiative, which will consist of three phases 1 - Pilot Phase (from 2011 - 2012), 2 - Expansion Phase (2013 - 2016) and 3 - Consolidation Phase (2017 - 2020). Special attention is given to ensure that the momentum of the project is not compromised by changes in government policy.

Sunimal Fernando is currently in Mysore India liaising with Central Institute of Indian Languages, dedicated to teaching second languages, regarding the trilingual initiative. He expressed the following views in an interview with the Daily News.

Q: Although the initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka was announced as early as 2009, with the launch of the Year of English and IT, it is still in the draft stage, why?

A: When ‘English as a life skill’ was launched, the President had already decided on the next phase, the trilingual initiative. But he wanted to watch how the initiative on English would turn out, before giving the green light for the trilingual initiative.

Language planning is a whole new discipline. But Sri Lanka has never had a well articulated language policy since independence. In the absence of experience ‘English as a life skill’ programme was a sort of lesson on language planning. Now with extensive experience on the subject we are confident about moving on to the next phase - the 10 Year National Action Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka.

Q: On several occasions you have said that the programmes being implemented by the Ministries of National Languages and Social Integration, Public Administration and Education have been lagging behind, what is being done to bring them up to speed?

A: The legislation for a trilingual Sri Lanka has been in existence since 1989. The lagging behind was not between 2009 and now but between 1989 and today. The programmes implemented by the National Languages and Social Integration Ministry on the one side and the Education Ministry to train public servants in the second national language are largely uncoordinated.

Annually 1.5 percent of the public service follow courses in Sinhala, Tamil and English conducted by the Official Languages Department. At this rate it will take over 100 years to develop a public service cardre competent in the second national language.

As for the Education Ministry, the policy to educate all Sinhala students in Tamil and all Tamil students in Sinhala, has been in existence for years. But this is not the reality. There are roughly 26,000 English language teachers in the country. But there are less than 4,000 teachers capable of teaching either of the national languages as second languages. In fact Tamil and Sinhala are not taught as second languages in over 7,000 schools.

The Ministries have not made any serious attempt to fully enact the policies. This is where the 10 Year National Action Plan comes in. This will be the first attempt to systematically transform the constitutional position of Sinhala and Tamil as the two official national languages through a series of programmes and activities.

Under the 10 Year National Action Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka, two apex organizations will be established directly under the Presidential Secretariat. The Language Agency of Sri Lanka (LASL) will be responsible for policy interpretation and strategies for converting policy into various programmes. It will be responsible for coordinating all language related activities in various ministries.

There are already 16 institutions that are involved in language programmes, all uncoordinated. LASL will coordinate these institutions and ensure that they follow uniform teaching methods and that their syllabi and curricula are not in conflict with each other. LASL along with the second apex agency, National Authority for Language Research and Training (NALRT), will monitor the progress. All teaching tools, methods and language research will be the responsibilities of NALRT.

Q: Was the Sinhala only Act the cause of communal issues?

A: Far from it. In fact the replacement of English as the language of administration in 1956, first with Sinhala and then with Sinhala and Tamil, is one of the greatest achievements of any post-independent government as regards language policy.

Up to 1956, only eight percent of the country was conversant in the English language. The mother tongue of 92 percent of citizens was either Sinhala or Tamil. Since English was the language of administration proficiency in it was a deciding factor in obtaining jobs in the fields of engineering, medicine, administration and accounting. All important positions in the country were closed to 92 percent of the population. The National Language Act opened the doors to this 92 percent.

Q: But was Tamil not sidelined by the Act?

A: No, because the ‘Reasonable use of Tamil Act’ was introduced almost immediately after the Sinhala Only Act. Why Tamil seems, on the surface, to have been marginalised was that some of the best English, largely missionary schools, were in the North and the East. Because of the location of these schools most of the Tamil people were competent in English. Consequently they were able to secure a large share of employment opportunities. With the enactment of the Sinhala only Act not only English educated Tamils but Sinhala elites lost many advantages.

However since 1956, when Sinhala was made the language of administration, the country as a whole was discouraged from experimenting on language planning. Language exercises were not encouraged. As a result the discipline of language planning had completely died out by the turn of the century.

Q: Can trilingualism promote national harmony?

A: Yes. This is not my opinion alone. The people of Sri Lanka, especially those living in rural areas are exceedingly liberal and far more progressive, than the intellectuals and academics of the country, in their views on the relationship between language and national harmony.

The majority of the people believe that learning the other national language will facilitate better understanding between the races.

According to the Socio-linguistic survey 2010, 92 percent of Sinhala people living in majority Sinhala speaking provinces, 98 percent of Sinhala people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces, 92 percent of Tamil people living in Sinhala majority provinces, 94 percent of Tamil people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces, 92 percent of Muslim people living in majority Sinhala speaking provinces and 89 percent of Muslim people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces said that learning the other national language promotes national integration.

Moreover 90 percent of Sinhala people living in majority Sinhala speaking provinces, 100 percent of Sinhala people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces, 91 percent of Tamil people living in Sinhala majority provinces, 52 percent of Tamil people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces, 88 percent Muslim people living in majority Sinhala speaking provinces, 44 percent Muslim people living in majority Tamil speaking provinces identified language as an essential element in establishing unity among different linguistic groups. To be continued

 

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