Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha said that steps will be taken from 2023 onwards to strengthen the use of spoken English among children from the first year.
Accordingly, the Minister said that all arrangements have been made to train approximately 13,500 teachers of the first and second grades of government schools representing all provinces as trainers on November 18th and 19th.
The minister expressed the said views in response to the request made by MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara, requesting to give priority to teach English to school students in a way that suits the future needs.
The Ministerial Consultative Committee on Education was held in Parliament recently under the chairmanship of Dr. Susil Premajayantha
Attention was drawn towards the grammatical errors in the English medium school textbooks and the minister instructed the National Institute of Education to find out whether such grammatical errors exist.
Furthermore, the request to give the opportunity to the children of Tamil medium schools in Sri Lanka to study in Sinhala medium if they wish to do so was also considered at the committee meeting held.
The Members of Parliament also pointed out that especially the children of the Tamil medium schools in the areas where a majority of the Sinhalese people live are interested in learning in Sinhala medium.
At present, drugs are spreading very rapidly in schools, so the members were of the opinion that urgent measures should be taken to prevent it, and the chairman mentioned that measures have already been taken.
During a discussion about universities teaching certain courses in English only, the Chairman of the University Grants Commission, Prof. Sampath Amaratunge, said that at present, even in Arts faculty, studies are conducted in English.
MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara also highlighted that there is a need for teachers who can teach in both Sinhala and English languages.
