Sri Lanka is planning to roll out optional English language education from primary to advance level in government-funded schools to help Sri Lankan students to become more globally competitive in higher education and jobs. The project under consideration will first be launched in certain areas as a pilot project to the response from the public.  

“Attention has been focused on implementing a program to provide education to any child who wishes to study in English medium from the primary section to the GCE Advanced Level,” Kapila Perera, the secretary to the Ministry of Education, was quoted as saying by Colombopage.

“The problem here is that these children study in English medium from primary to advanced level. But there are very few English medium schools in the government school system,” he said, adding that a permanent solution is needed for this problem. 

At first, a pilot project will be started in every province, including Colombo, and based upon the response, the project to provide English medium education will be rolled out with the 1,000 National Schools Program and the Trilingual Schools Program.

Significantly, language remains a sensitive topic in the island nation, and controversies regarding the systematic marginalization of Tamil--a language spoken by its Tamil ethnic minority--erupt almost on a regular basis. 

Currently, the country follows a three-language policy - Sinhala, Tamil, and English.

(SAM)