Trilingual education policy helps social advancement - Douglas

The government's trilingual teaching programme will help social advancement, said Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development Minister Douglas Devananda.

The minister was addressing a ceremony at the Jaffna Hindu Girls' College to mark the donation of computers and multimedia projectors to schools in the North.

He said the government's programme to teach Sinhala, Tamil and English languages in schools will help the development of education.

The minister said through the trilingual education policy, an opportunity had arisen for Northern students to learn Sinhala and English languages which would help learn Information Technology and for better communication towards a developed society. He said some hypocritical and selfish politicians in the past, led the people to learn only the mother tongue as it sufficed their political dream of a self-ruling government.

"It paved the way for the society to be of a lukewarm standard of education which subjected children in the North to a massive crisis being not in a position to communicate with their counterparts in developed countries." The minister said these politicians gave the best of education to their children either in Colombo or foreign countries.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa government changed the scenario and introduced the trilingual policy making it possible for every child in the country to learn all three languages opening opportunities for students to better themselves in disciplines of study they desire, he said.

"It also cements interracial harmony and relationship," he said. Twelve multimedia projectors were distributed among 12 educational zones.

New computers and multimedia projectors were distributed among 120 schools in the province. The programme is being implemented in all parts of the country.