English and IT, powerful tools
The speech made by President Mahinda
Rajapaksa, at the ceremonial launch of “2009 - Year of English and
Information Technology” on February 13, 2009.
I
am very happy to take part in this event that celebrates the
launch of the Year of English and IT and to formally declare 2009 the
Year of English and IT in our country.
In the ‘Mahinda Chintana’, my election manifesto, which received the
endorsement of the people, we recognized the importance of rapidly
creating a knowledge society in Sri Lanka. To make the idea of the
global village, more meaningful to our people, we stressed the
importance of linking the villages and townships in all the provinces
and districts of our country with the outside world of knowledge. And to
achieve this objective, the ‘Mahinda Chintana’ lays emphasis on the
unmistakable need to urgently equip the people, especially the youth,
with proficiency in the English language on the one side and to provide
them with access to computers and internet facilities, through the rapid
development of use of information technology, on the other.
English and IT shall therefore be used by our government as
instruments of rural empowerment; as powerful tools that could make the
villages of our country a meaningful part of the global village.
In the use of IT for rural empowerment, we can be proud of the
success achieved in the past few years. Whereas in November 2005, only
5% percent of the population had literacy in IT, by the end of 2008, the
IT literacy rate had increased to as much as 23% with considerable
progress in the rural areas. The establishment of 579 Nenasalas or rural
tele-centres and 2,500 IT labs in schools, has been largely instrumental
for this increase. Our goal is to increase the number of Nenasalas to
1,000 and to reach 50% IT literacy by the end of 2010.
As for English, which we recognize to be another important tool of
rural empowerment, its penetration across the country and especially,
into the rural hinterland has been held back by constraints of a very
different nature. English was and still continues to be perceived and
delivered as a gateway to elite status and an emblem of class and
privilege. The curriculum and teaching methods followed in our country,
which place importance not on the use of it for communication, but on
its rules of grammar, and on perfect pronunciation, have only served to
maintain it as the exclusive preserve of a selfish, privileged class and
a tool of social repression.
The Presidential Task Force on English and IT has adopted several
radical measures to transform English teaching method and curriculum in
our schools to make the language user-friendly and less elitist. Thus,
English will progressively be perceived and delivered to the children of
Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes, no more as a ‘subject’ but as a ‘tool
of communication’, for speaking and for seeking knowledge and
employment.
Our country is greatly inspired by the dramatic success of India in
the fields of IT and English in recent years. It is for this reason that
we have turned to India in addition to other countries for technical
support to strengthen our own endeavours. We are honoured by the
presence today of Mr. Narayana Murthy, the ‘Father of IT in India’ and
the Chairman and Mentor of the world famous ‘Infosys’.
His Special Address has given us a very interesting perspective on
empowering rural people with knowledge in IT. We are confident that his
association with our national initiative, which starts today will
certainly continue into the future. We are equally honoured by the
presence of Professor Abhai Maurya, the Vice Chancellor of the English
and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad, India’s Centre of
Excellence for the Teaching of English. He has already launched the
process of re-training of our teachers in the delivery of ‘Spoken
English’ to our schools with the generous assistance of the Indian
government.
2009 is our country’s Year of English and IT. With the liberation of
our people from the clutches of terrorism which destroyed our country
for more than 25 years, 2009 will also be our country’s Year of Peace,
our country’s Year of Reconciliation, and our Year of true Independence.
It promises to be the year in which all our people, - irrespective of
caste, race, locality, language or religion, - begin to march together,
as the sons and daughters of Mother Lanka towards a common goal of
development and prosperity.
When marching forward into the future as a single people, it is my
view that the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people should engage with one
another in each other’s language. I therefore visualize for the future a
bi-lingual Sri Lankan society. Individual programmes in this direction
are already being implemented in the Ministries of Public Administration
and Education with the facilitation of the Ministry of Constitutional
Affairs and National Integration.
However, I shall be directing my officials in the near future, to
take steps to prepare a Comprehensive National Master Plan with
disaggregated Action Plans for realizing a bi-lingual public service and
a bi-lingual nation within a specified but realistic time frame.
With the assistance of the Minister of Constitutional Affairs and
National Integration, we will drive this programme with dedication and
commitment till the desired results are achieved.
English, on the other hand, will be our language to reach out to the
world and access the global pool of knowledge and technology. As the
national initiative on English gathers momentum and achieves desired
results, I visualize, in fact, a tri-lingual Sri Lankan society in the
long run.
Our government’s policy framework, Mahinda Chintana, clearly lays
down our policy on language. The strong link between language and
culture is recognized and respected. To the people of my country,
Sinhala and Tamil are not mere tools of communication. They encapsulate
our values and world-views, give expression to our inner feelings and
define our cultural categories. They embody the soul of our people. They
confer to us our distinct identity.
Therefore, the Presidential Task Force on English and IT will ensure
that the national initiative should be designed in such a way that
English is delivered purely as a ‘Life Skill’ that is desired for its
utility value, as a vital tool of communication with the outside world
of knowledge, and a skill that is required for employment. We will
ensure that there will be a complete break with the past, where in our
country English was rolled out as a vehicle for creating disaffection
towards our national cultures, national ethos and national identity, for
alienating our people from their roots and for creating social and
cultural divisions among them.
The declaration of the Year of English and IT today is thus a
benchmark which coincides with the end of terrorism and the clearing of
the political space for the expression of the resolve of the Sri Lankan
people to march together as one proud people towards a future of peace
and prosperity. In the global environment of today, English and IT are
two essential tools for the achievement of our goal.
Marking the beginning of 2009 as a point of reference, the national
initiative on English and IT will expand under my direction through a
diversity of programmes and activities. Facilitated by the Presidential
Task Force on English and IT, I call for this important national
initiative the unstinted support and cooperation of all government
ministries and agencies both central and provincial, the private
business sector, which has most to gain from its success and civil
society organizations interested in the development of the country. I am
confident that this national initiative will also draw the generous
support of the international community. |