In response to the Presidential initiative, already, a local institute has come forward to join hands with an Indian partner.
A partnership has already been signed between Sri Lankan owned International Education Management Singapore and E Square English Academy of India.
The Indian partner will provide modern English teaching methods and proven course content from India, while the Sri Lankan partner will provide the local expertise in adapting course material for local usage. The institute will also manage educational enterprises and will involve in the opening of language centres around the country in partnership with the local centre operators. Students graduating from the English language programmes, would also be well positioned to seek better employment opportunities.

By Wilson Gnanadass
The lack of adequate and appropriate communicative English language skill in Sri Lanka is finally being felt by the powers that be.
The historical circumstances of Sri Lanka, being governed by the British in the first quarter of the century, afforded Sri Lankans easy access to master the English language. In the past, many Sri Lankans were skilled in the English language, that they even won many international awards for creative and comparative literatures.

There were times when Sri Lankans boasted of their ability to speak the Queen’s language with accurate pronunciation, when even the British couldn’t do.

However, rash political decisions and nationalistic ideologies of local leaders, fast contributed to the decline of the usage of the English language.

And today, the English language is confined only to the elites in the cities and towns in Sri Lanka.
Realising the need to resurrect the declining knowledge and usage of the English language, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has moved in to evolve a mechanism, through an accelerated programme, to instill the English language into all those desirous of acquiring it.

The President, exercising his prerogative, has directed an advisor, Sunimal Fernando, to draw up a programme, similar to the Indian model that has brought about a revolutionary change in the language skills, especially in the southern state of Tamilnadu.
Accordingly, a programme has been designed titled, ‘English as a life Skill’ and the spade work, in connection with the implementation of this mega project, in fact, has already begun.

To fulfill this task, Indian assistance has been sought, with Indian experts expected to visit Sri Lanka shortly, to explore the possibility of introducing the methodologies applied in India, that gave room for a revolutionary change, in Sri Lanka as well.

Today, though many countries are willing to outsource their businesses to Sri Lanka, lack of English knowledge is seemingly hampering this process and as a result, Sri Lanka is, not only fast losing investment but also, job opportunities.

Recognising the urgency of the rapidly changing market dynamics, President Rajapaksa recently appointed a Special Presidential Task Force to strategise, plan and facilitate programmes and activities to enhance English language skills within the country.

Low level of English
A preliminary study revealed that, except in a small number of fee levying private and international schools attended by children of affluent families, the quality of English teaching in the mainstream government schools is extremely low.

Appallingly, the minimum qualification for recruitment as an English teacher is a credit pass in English based on a taught syllabus in the GCE- OL examination, in contrast to Tamilnadu, where the minimum qualification for recruitment as an English teacher is a B.Ed. with specialisation in English, in an examination conducted in English.

Hence, a very poor quality English language product is delivered to students in Sri Lankan schools.
According to the Public Survey and Research Unit (PSRU) of the Presidential Secretariat, there are over 1,600 private tutoring institutes/tuition classes islandwide, teaching English, while over 21,000 English teachers are also engaged in teaching English in schools.

Despite this number of English teachers teaching English in schools and elsewhere in Sri Lanka, the standard of English continues to decline and therefore, the special task force has identified the immediate need for radically upgrading the English teacher base within the country, both in the government sector and in the unregulated private teaching sector.

The survey also reveals that, at present, methods used in the teaching of English are obsolete. Teaching methods and course contents have evolved in a manner appropriate to persons from homes and environments that already use English. They have been found to be largely inappropriate for teaching English to persons from Sinhala and Tamil speaking homes.

The PSRU has also found out that there is no nationally recognised English proficiency examination conducted on a set syllabus by a recognised institution such as the Department of Examinations – other than English as a subject in the GCE-OL and GCE-AL examinations, towards which, English training programmes could be directed, whereby, uniform standards could be maintained.

The Presidential Task Force (PTF), on a directive from the President himself, therefore, has sought access to the resources available in India. The first meeting of the Joint India-Sri Lanka Committee for the Provision of Assistance for the Development of Education, took place in Sri Lanka on December 11 and 12 last year.

The Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, declared that all required technical assistance requested by the PTF would be provided to Sri Lanka and this was followed by an official visit to Delhi and Hyderabad by the convener of the PTF, Sunimal Fernando, in January 2008.

Policy frame
Presidential advisor and PTF convener Sunimal Fernando assured that the delivery of English language skills would be designed in such a way to serve purely as a tool of employment and not as a vehicle for the destruction of the local cultures, ethos and national identity, for dividing the people socially and culturally.

He said that English would be perceived purely and simply as a ‘Life Skill’, as President Rajapaksa wanted it that way.
According to him, the teaching of English through structure, grammar and translation, which constitutes the current mainstream approach, will be replaced by the teaching of English through listening and talking, to be followed by reading and writing.

Explaining his experience of the educational system in India, Fernando said that the growing demand for spoken/communicative English teaching methods and courses in India, has largely been a direct response to the needs of IT related service industries and especially those of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service industry that has boomed in India – especially in places such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, Pune, Kolkata, Tiruchy, Coimbatore and Kochi among others in the last 10 years.

“For Sri Lanka to be an investment destination for Indian BPOs, spoken English skills of the required standard would have to be available in abundance. By transferring to Sri Lanka, the English teaching skills and course contents developed in India itself for its IT related service industries, the PTF seeks to create the required talent pool for Indian BPOs in particular and other IT related service industries in general, to invest in our country,” he said.

Indian investment
The Presidential initiative will also move proactively in India to attract Indian BPOs in particular and other services sector industries to invest in Sri Lanka and provide well paid employments to those acquiring spoken/ communicative English skills through the different elements of the programmes.

Already, the second biggest Indian BPO, WIPRO, has agreed to consider investing in Sri Lanka, at a stage when the country is able to offer them a minimum of 500 seats with the required spoken/communicative English skills.
“If we succeed, WIPRO will be a role model for other Indian BPOs to also invest in Sri Lanka, as the inadequate talent pool supply in India and the rising value of the Indian Rupee are pushing Indian BPOs to seek investment opportunities outside India,” Fernando explained.

Strategy
To meet the target, the PTF will adopt an aggressive enterprise driven approach.
Initially, more than 800 small and medium tutoring institutes teaching English, among other subjects, will be approached by the Indian potential business partners, from April 23 to 25. The meeting is organised by the Board of Investment (BOI) in collaboration with the PSRU. Already, over 200 Sri Lankan teaching institutes have requested an opportunity to meet the 10 potential business partners coming from India.

The objective of the meeting will be to make possible the upgrading of the teaching methods, teacher skills and course contents of the private tutoring/tuition sector of more than 800 institutions.

The PTF has also explored the possibility of utilising the TV channels available in Sri Lanka, for a distance education system. In Sri Lanka, over 80 % of all households have TV, therefore, the PTF is to produce and telecast modular type audio-visual spoken English distance learning programmes as a ‘fast track’ teaching activity.

The Nation already learns that Rupavahini, Sirasa and ITN have volunteered to help fulfill this task of the PTF.
At the request of the PTF, technical assistance is offered by the following Indian institutions to Sri Lankan TV networks that require technical inputs to produce and telecast modular type, job oriented, state of the art spoken/communicative English distance learning programmes. They are: National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Consortium of Educational Communication (CEC), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and Sri Sanskar School of Language and Communication (SSSLC). Technical assistance has also been offered by the British Council, Colombo.

The cost of producing such a modular type audio-visual teaching course at a medium level of technical sophistication is estimated to be about Rs. 28 million. And the cost of telecasting a single cycle of 90-100 modules between 6:00 pm and 7:00 pm, at a subsidised rate offered to the PTF, is about Rs. 8 million.

The transformation of the English language teaching methods and course contents in the governmental sector, according to the PTF, is to traverse a slower track.

The PTF has identified that it is not realistic to expect a State institution to move ahead in an innovative manner, with a fast track programme, due to institutional, administrative and financial constraints.

The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) of Hyderabad, has agreed to set up a Centre for English Lanugage Training (CELT ) in Sri Lanka, similar to what the EFLU has done in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The cost of the Indian expertise will be borne by the Indian High Commission in Colombo, while the infrastructure will be provided by the Sri Lankan Government.

The CELT will be responsible for training English teachers in schools, in the new spoken/communicative English teaching methods.

The Presidential Secretariat has requested the Indian government to sponsor 30 handpicked English teachers from the State sector, for a special three-month training course at EFLU, Hyderabad, under the ITECH programme of the Indian ministry of external affairs, so that they may return as Master Trainers to work with CELT, to upgrade the English teacher base in the governmental education sector.

Once established, the CELT, together with the Dept of English and Foreign Languages and the Dept of Examinations, Ministry of Education, will develop the syllabus and course material and conduct examinations for the Certification of English Language Teachers. The examination will test the proficiency of teachers at three levels – elementary, intermediate and advanced.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka, together with the PTF, is preparing a grant scheme to be implemented over a three-year period, to provide financial assistance to 50,000 persons between the ages of 18 and 25, to acquire job oriented spoken/communicative English skills at a state of the art teaching institution recognized by the programme.

Re-training
As the ‘fast track’ programme would be aimed at motivating the private sector the ‘slow track’ programme will be targeted at the government sector.

It is believed that to facilitate this effort, the national and provincial ministries of education would be called upon to re-train government teachers.

This effort, according to the PTF, will require careful planning through the offer of incentives such as salary increments.
It is suggested that with the further upgrading of the teacher base, government schools could, in the long run, conduct English medium streams at all levels. The system could also then effectively and meaningfully push students to improve their English language skills by making it a compulsory paper at the GCE-AL examination.

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