Socio-political dimension of English in Sri Lanka

Revisiting the four principles underpinning the Presidential Initiative: English as a Life Skill:

Keynote address by Presidential Advisor and Coordinator of the Presidential Initiative on English as a Life Skill Sunimal Fernando at the workshop on Innovative Pedagogical Practices in the 21st Century: English in practice, organized by the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka at Belihul Oya,

Continued from last Wednesday

Listening and speaking skills were delivered to students through activity based teaching methods and new teaching material contained in the new Teacher Guide on Spoken English prepared by the master trainers. This is being followed by the ongoing development of spoken English testing tools for public examinations, which have marked a watershed in English teaching in our schools.

Almost all 23,000 English language teachers too have now been re-trained by the new leadership to deliver listening and speaking skills to our students. The Teacher Guide compiled by them is now used by all English teachers in Sri Lanka and even by some educational institutions in India. As a country we are proud to say that where our public school system is concerned today, we have all the English language training expertise we need. We have a national cadre of 400 English language trainers distributed in all nine provinces, a product of the Presidential Initiative.

No role for foreigners

Our national human resources in the field of English language training are such that today we do not need to go to foreign sources anymore - however inappropriate they may have been even in the past - for expertise to help us train our English teachers. We commend the Higher Education Ministry for making the fullest use of the new ELT expertise of the master trainers of the Presidential Initiative in their nationwide programme to provide English language skills to new university entrants this year.

English drive without political sensitivity - a recipe for failure

The Fourth Principle: Balancing the speed of English Language Skill Dissemination with the Norm of Social Equity

English skills are in great demand in Sri Lankan society and almost all people want to know English. This is largely because of the sociological value placed on English in our society. It is also because of its increasing requirement as a qualifier for employment. Its growing relevance for accessing knowledge and information from an increasingly globalized outside world also cannot be denied. Employment opportunities in the Sinhala and Tamil language administered public sector have failed to meet the demands of the country’s aspiring youth. Hence private sector jobs which are much sought after these days require proficiency in English language as a qualification at most levels.

It is recognized therefore that the vast majority of Sri Lankans seek English for employment and other reasons. The successful dissemination of English skills to students throughout the country cannot be reached in the near future with the human, financial and technological resources currently available to the country. While achieving the objective of disseminating English language skills to all students in the country is fundamental, the harsh reality that the constraints in human and material resources will not allow equal access to English in the foreseeable future needs to be accepted. In this milieu it is inevitable that the bigger urban schools will benefit at the cost of the more distant rural schools in the country.

The need for political sensitivity

This creates a situation that needs to be handled with much political sensitivity. The people of Sri Lanka fought for several decades at great sacrifice to finally in 1956 dethrone English as our country’s language of administration. English had shut the doors of the administrative services, the professions and the technical services to 92 percent of our people. English had hitherto blocked the path of social mobility to Sinhala and Tamil educated people of our small towns and villages. It is both immature and foolish to believe that the patriotic masses of our country will allow the remnants of the old westernized, urbanized, anti-national English speaking elites - with or without the collaboration of their foreign intellectual and cultural masters - to bring English back in a manner in which the social, cultural, political and economic interests of the nationally rooted Sinhala and Tamil speaking people are adversely affected.

An equitable approach to promotion of English

People have to be empowered with the competencies to read, write and above all to speak in English. This is essential both for their upward mobility as well as for the forward march of our country. Achieving the aforesaid goal in scale will be in an environment that just cannot bear the huge cost for doing so in the short run. Skillful management of time frame and an almost passionate commitment to the principle of social equity are of the highest importance. Forcing the pace of the exercise including the pace of extending English medium education in our schools will only inject new life into the remnants of the old English speaking elites. It will further the creation of new English speaking elites and progressively displace them from the cultural and emotional mainstream of Sri Lankan life. The seeds for yet another social upheaval could be sown, even if unintentionally, by mismanaging the delicate balance of social equity in the country. There cannot be recourse to a one-dimensional focus to swiftly multiply English competence in the country without sensitivity to its social consequences. The process has therefore to be managed with social and political sensitivity.

Promotion of English in conjunction with the national languages: Towards a Trilingual Sri Lanka

The fourth point of departure of the Presidential Initiative therefore was that in the socio-political context of our country English skills can grow and be disseminated successfully not as a stand-alone activity. English can develop only in association with a parallel development, enrichment and dissemination activity of Sinhala and Tamil language skills. Sinhala and Tamil cannot in any way be the victim of an English language drive as that will be socio-politically unsustainable. Sinhala and Tamil should be - as our mother tongue languages - and will most certainly be the languages of discourse, discussion, debate and intellectual interaction in the country.

Liberating knowledge from the clutches of language

Thus if we are to move towards a knowledge society, knowledge has to be liberated from the clutches of language. Sharply focused Sinhala and Tamil language development programmes and large scale translation programmes should enable knowledge in all modern subjects of science and technology, economics, management, governance systems and a host of other subjects to be available in Sinhala and Tamil in addition to English. In any case Sinhala and Tamil would be the languages in which the vast majority will continue to function for very many years to come. If they feel their interests are threatened by a politically insensitive and forceful drive for English dissemination as has happened sometimes in the past, they will very rightly act politically and make the English drive a failure.

The role of English in a Trilingual Sri Lanka

Socio-politically speaking English can grow and prosper in Sri Lanka only on the lap of Sinhala and Tamil, and never ever on its own. If English is to be socio-politically sustainable, it must essentially be packaged together with Sinhala and Tamil.

In other words Sinhala and Tamil have to be developed, enriched and delivered as the country’s primary languages of discourse and interaction, other than English only. English on the other hand should be advocated at a different level. English must be promoted as a culturally neutral life skill for occupation, employment and for accessing knowledge from the outside world.

Such a packaging of English in cohort with or as an associate language to Sinhala and Tamil is in a sense what is being designed in the Ten Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka which the President will hopefully launch later this year. The Trilingual Initiative is being drafted with socio-political sensitivity to the socio-political dimensions of language use, practice and identity in Sri Lanka. Sociologically speaking the dissemination of English, in the context of the Ten Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka is perceived in conjunction with the parallel development and enrichment of Sinhala and Tamil as the country’s undisputed languages of discourse and interaction. Only an approach such as this will give English a stable and lasting though not dominant place in the language landscape of the country. The trilingual plan will consolidate therefore on a broad national canvas the gains and successes of the Presidential Initiative: English as a Life Skill.

Concluded