|
Over and over again, the Government Translators’ Service Union has
stressed that the dearth of qualified translators in public service
cannot be remedied without giving the service a professional level
recognition by placing them in a level parallel to that of All Island
Services.
By Public Administration Circular No 06/2006 (iv), Translators’
Service was further lowered in salary level, placing it on a scale even
lower than that assigned to clerical service (Supra Class).
Surprisingly, the authorities tasked with preparation of the
Translators’ Service Minute to remedy the problem of the severe shortage
of translators are, reportedly, planning to introduce lower educational
qualifications required for entry into the service from degree level to
GCE (A/L) and assign the recruitment class a still lower salary scale.
Can the problem of the existing dearth of translators that took place
owing to not giving the service a professional level salary scale be
answered by filling the cadre only in numbers through recruitment of
people with lower educational qualifications? Why are these authorities
so reluctant to accept the true reason behind the present shortage of
translators?
If they introduce this new entry qualification of education as A/L
and further lower the assigned salary scale at recruitment, who will
answer its ensuing and most probable threat of even the handful of
graduates who remain in service among all these discriminations, leaving
it? Who will take the responsibility of the low-standard translations of
such entrants?
Translators are given no training at all after their recruitment into
the service up to their retirement from it, except the 10 day
orientation programme at entry to the service. There are only two
classes as class one and special class in the service and, as such, the
translator recruited into class one has only one opportunity of
promotion. Though the service minute provides that translators having a
eight year satisfactory period of service in class one are qualified to
sit for the promotion examination to class one, virtually they are
deprived even of that single opportunity for a promotion since the said
promotion examination has not been held for more than 15 years.
Translators are at the receiving end of the failure on the part of
the relevant authorities to hold the said promotion examination in time
and, as a result, by now, there are many class one translators who have
come to the special class salary steps with the passage of time still
without getting promotions to special class. Who are going to pay them
the arrears of salary that they would have accrued if the promotion
examination was duly held and they were placed on a special class salary
step five to six years ago?
In such a state of affairs, can the burning issue in the public
service of the skilled graduate translators leaving the service and the
ensuing dearth of translators ever be resolved by further down-grading
the service by lowering entry qualifications thereby lowering the
quality of service?
Upul Bandara
A Government Translator
The encouragement that is now being given to the new generation by
the government to learn English has to be commended.
The initiative that has been launched by the President and directed
by Sunimal Fernando to equip the youth with a working knowledge of
English as a life-skill which will assist them to acquire knowledge of
modern development is quite an insightful step taken in the right
direction.
In regard to this effort, there is no denying the fact that all means
available should be made use of to help our young men and women to pick
up the essentials of the English language as quickly as possible. I have
no doubt that our media including mainly the radio and the television
possess the best means of helping youth in this effort.
However it is extremely pathetic to note that when some personnel of
these media broadcast programmes, engage in a useless and ridiculous
effort to imitate mainly the accent of BBC English announcers, making it
impossible to follow their talk by Sri Lankan youth. Why is this slavish
and foolish exercise on the part of some of our news readers? Our
announcers literally ‘swallow’ half of the words they speak in their
effort to imitate the BBC English announcers. I doubt whether even the
listeners well-up in English can fully understand what they say due to
their distorted accent in pronouncing words.
In this exercise, if they want to imitate anybody, let them imitate
the speech of the best of our past English educated people like S W R D
Bandaranaike, Dudley Senanayake, Pieter Keuneman, Dr Colvin de Silva, G
G Ponnambalam. They all were masters of the English language who spoke
English clearly pronouncing the words enabling the listeners to hear
every word they uttered.
M K Dharmadasa
Retired Government Translator
There was a ferry service in Kalutara North, close to the Kalu-Ganga
estuary where people used to bathe and paddle boats leisurely. This
ferry had been maintained by the Kalutara UC but now it is completely
neglected.
If the concerned authority will reorganise and resume this
ferry-service, certainly a sizable income can be earned.
C M Kamburawala
The water supply to Waishaka Vidyalaya situated at E S Fernando
Mawatha in Wellawatte had not functioned for a long time. Due to this
situation, students and teachers of this school had to face a lot of
difficulties.
The ‘Wella Sports Society’ of Hatton National Bank, Wellawatte funded
the project of restoring an efficient water supply. Thanks to the ‘Wella
Sports Society’, the water supply to this school is now functioning very
well and the teachers, students and parents are very grateful to the
management and staff of Hatton National Bank, Wellawatte for this
praiseworthy service.
Karuna Wettasinghe,
Boralesgamuwa.
|
