Former Indian President Kalam says:

Trilingual Lanka, recipe for unity

Rasika SOMARATHNA

* Recalls C W W Kannangara’s efforts

* Language will bring communities together

The initiative for a Trilingual Sri Lanka will enable the country's youths to achieve cultural and socio - economic unity, former Indian President Dr Abdul Kalam said addressing the launch of the Trilingual Lanka initiative in Colombo on Saturday. Dr Kalam was the chief guest at the launch of the 10-year National Action Plan and the Declaration of 2012 as the Year of Trilingual Sri Lanka at Temple Trees held under the auspices of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The President on the occasion declared 2012 as the Year for a Trilingual Sri Lanka. Delivering a special lecture, former Indian President Kalam said that he was inspired by the landmark initiative, a brain child of President Rajapaksa, which sought to make Sri Lanka a trilingual nation by 2020.

“It would be a continuation of the efforts in quality education for all, which was pioneered by the first Education Minister and the father of Sri Lanka's free education system C W W Kannangara whose efforts are reflected in the very high literacy rate in Sri Lanka,” the former Indian President said.

Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga said that as bridges link islands, it is the vision of President Rajapaksa to make use of language to bring together different communities.

Describing how the initiative came to be, the secretary said that it was not recently that the President mooted such an idea but as way back as 1971 when he was the youngest MP in Parliament.

“In December 22, 1971(at the age of 25), participating at the Education Ministry expenditure head at the budget debate, he said that every Tamil child in the country should be taught Sinhala and every Sinhala child Tamil. He also said that for us to take English to the villages we needed teachers from the villages itself (who think like villages) instead of English educated elites from the urban settings. He advocated to choose students who had excelled in English at examinations and train them as teachers of English,” the secretary recalled.

He also pointed out that later in the President’s first manifesto Mahinda Chinthana, he had said: “ I will take early steps to teach Tamil language to Sinhala speaking children and Sinhala to Tamil speaking children”.

“Later in 2010 in the Mahinda Chinthana forward vision he said: ‘Every education division in the country will be provided with a state-of-the-art language laboratory, not only for English but for Sinhala, Tamil and other languages as well”.’

The secretary also recalled a part of the speech made by the President at the ninth international conference of language and development in Colombo last year where the President said: “ Sri Lanka needs to be a knowledge hub in the region. Our primary focus however is to ensure that the people of this country, irrespective of their ethnicity will learn the main languages Sinhala and Tamil to communicate with each other.”

“In the field of education, we see the role which the language can play in social integration. It is for this purpose that we have introduced new policies for teaching of English and IT to take the latest advancements in knowledge and technology to all parts of our country,” the President had said, Weeratunga added.

“It is the President’s strong belief that language could act as a bridge to connect ethnic communities. That is exactly what the country needs in the post-conflict era,” he added and said that the initiative for a tri-lingual Sri Lanka contained the above intentions.

He said that with the launch of this landmark initiative, extraordinary efforts would be made to teach Tamil, Sinhala and English languages to all.

The 10- Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka is the first comprehensive document on the subject originating from a Head of State. It sets the foundation for a national initiative to encourage the acquisition of trilingual skills and competencies by all citizens of the country.

The National Plan provides the impetus for the equal development and promotion of the two national languages in all spheres of life. It

envisages restoring a culture of language learning in the country. The national initiative is accompanied by strong political resolve, commitment and clout to teach Sinhala and Tamil to non- native speakers of the two languages in the country, while promoting English language to suit different categories of learners .

Advisor to the President and Coordinator of the trilingual initiative Sunimal Frenando also spoke. He also unveiled the results of a

sociolinguistic survey conducted by the Public Survey and Research Unit of the Presidential Secretariat in 2010.

Three students belonging to Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities delivered the vote of thanks in all three languages.

Ministers, secretaries, ambassadors, high commissioners, members of the diplomatic corp and schoolchildren were present.