Guiding lights in promoting English language Education

I was away when Ranga Jayasuriya wrote his article with a headline about Sunil Handunetti being possibly a guiding light in promoting English language education.

- By Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

The thrust of his article was not, however, so complimentary about Sunil, whom I believe could be a comparatively efficient Minister, for he was the keenest to engage when we were in parliament together, and did a good job when he chaired the COPE.

But that was not the focus of the piece that I thought would need to be addressed, though since I did not have my computer I could not write a response. I did however point out certain errors to Ranga who, open as always, asked me to write a more comprehensive piece about English Education and the way forward.

First, though I should correct two errors in his piece. He declared that "When C.W.W. Kannangara introduced the Free Education Act, while the country was still a British colony, he also made it mandatory for students to have their primary education in their mother tongue; however, J.R. Jayawardene made an opportunistic intervention, expanding the compulsory swabasha education to the secondary level".

This assertion is full of errors. Kannangara's first great innovation (the Free Education Act was 1945) was Central Schools in the thirties, and those functioned in the English medium. His aim was to provide opportunities to rural children or rather all those outside the charmed circle of the big cities and for this purpose, the beneficiaries he targeted had to also have access to English as the privileged did.

But then J.R. Jayewardene got into the State Council, in the early forties, and proposed that the medium of instruction in all schools be compulsorily Sinhala, though he then accepted the proposal of his elders and betters that this should also include Tamil. And since they were unwilling to challenge his populist approach, the compromise was that this should apply only to primary education.