EDUCATION-SRI LANKA: For Poor Students, English Makes a Difference

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kumudini Hettiarachchi

KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka, Jan 26 2004 (IPS) - The children trudge into the Mohoththawagoda Secondary School, a few wearing white shoes and socks, some in rubber slippers but most of them barefoot.

This is not an unusual sight since some 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s population live below the poverty line. But despite their poverty, the children in this remote village in the north-western district of Kurunegala have something to hope for.

They, like a growing number of government schools across this South Asian island nation, now have access to education in the English language. Until recently, this was taught only in dozens of international schools based in the capital Colombo and urban towns.

”It has opened the world to them and in this modern era, English is essential,” C D. Karunatilleke, a trader whose child is attending Mohoththawagoda school, says as the knot of fathers gathered at the school gate nod vigorously in agreement.

The school is way off the main road, leaving a tarred road behind, with access from a long stretch of sandy track through acres and acres of paddy fields. Most of the children’s fathers are brick cutters, hired labourers who work in other people’s fields and are daily wage earners.

What is underway at the Mohoththawagoda school shows the changes that have come as the government tries to level the playing field in the teaching of English as a language and as a medium of instruction in secondary grades.

Though the children and their parents in this village may not express it in so many words, they are witness to the gradual removal of an indirect instrument of oppression. English-language instruction aims to bring such schools on par with the elitist system, which gives a distinct advantage to the children of well-to-do and influential families.

The resumption of English education began under educational reforms in 1999 by the then People’s Alliance government led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The teaching of subjects in English was launched in the advanced level Science classes and three subjects – Math, Environmental Studies and Health and Physical Studies – in Grade 6.

The reforms were also aimed at meeting the needs of the job market, like the teaching of vocational skills – instead of earlier being for the purpose of gaining an academic qualification.

English and Sinhala were the languages of instruction in government schools prior to the mid-1960s. This later became Sinhala and Tamil, with English being taught as a second language and that too not very well.

The proliferation of English-medium international schools in the early 1990s – where students from wealthy backgrounds sat for the British ordinary and advanced level examinations and invariably garnered the best jobs in the private sector – resulted in authorities in the late 1990s seeking ways of re-introducing English as a medium of instruction.

”English has been neglected for about 40 years and it will take time to correct the situation. But a start has been made,” says Prof R P Gunawardane, chairman of the National Education Commission (NEC) which was partly responsible for the reforms.

”We cannot get away from the fact that English is the global language of the 21st century. In information technology, 84 percent of the servers are in English and in science and technology 80 percent of the literature is in English. Translations are difficult to come by and even countries like China, Russia and Japan are promoting English,” he adds.

A random check by IPS from remote and rural schools in Bandarawela, Akurana, Gampaha, Galle and Matara across many districts found children enthusiastic and confident about the changes. Education officials said requests were flowing in to allow more and more schools to launch the programme.

Trader Karunatilleke says that if the reforms came earlier, he would not have had to send his two elder children to another college away from the village. ”We need to develop our village schools like this. See the trouble my other children are going through. They have to go one mile by bicycle and then by bus to get to that school.”

A few parents were worried that political changes, this too like many other programmes in the country, would at some point interrupt the education reforms. But Education Minister Karunasena Kodituwakku says: ”There is absolutely no reason to worry. This is national policy and we are bound by national policy.”

More than 1,000 students sat the Science advanced or A levels in the English medium last year and some students who have passed very well are from the outstations, he told IPS.

Examination data reveal that 1,035 students sat the A levels in English last year with 207 qualifying to enter university. Among the top scorers is a girl from a school in Bandarawela, outside Colombo. Of the 540 schools having A level Science across the country, 68 have begun the teaching of these subjects in English.

There are four million students in Sri Lanka but the number of those studying in the English medium under the new reforms were not available.

The learning of the three subjects in English is the choice of the student, but officials say that there is such a clamour for places that schools hold a minor test to select students. At the same time schools are laying a strong emphasis on the mother tongues, Sinhala and Tamil.

”There is no compulsion for the child to learn these subjects in English. Even after doing so for a while, if they want to revert to the Sinhala class, they can do so. We are also trying to strengthen the teaching of English language. It is however not at the cost of the mother tongue,” explains Buddhist monk Rev Sumana Ransi who teaches religion and Sinhala in the Mohoththawagoda school.

At the Ibbagamuwa Central College in Kurunegala, the ‘subjects in English’ programme is underway. Duminda Jayathilaka, a 12-year-old student in Grade 7, says confidently, ”I am in the class to develop my knowledge and also because it is interesting.”

Math teacher Janaka Ratnayake has opened the cupboards stocking Math books in English in the school library after 40 years, dusted off the silverfish from books and looked at them to check out their relevance today.

”The last entry stamp is in 1962,” he says recalling an incident where years ago someone who had topped the batch at a local bankers’ selection exam lost the opportunity to secure a job there. ”That person was rejected at the oral interview because he didn’t know English.”