AJUSTE NEOLIBERAL Y CANJE DE LA DEUDA: LA DÉCADA DEL NOVENTA

Coperahewa (2009) explained that language is a ‘social instruction’. Language serves a variety of non-linguistic purposes such as political, literary, economic, educational, religious, nationalistic and social. Citing Harvard anthropologist Thambiah (1986, p.73) Coperahewa contends that language has been a more important issue than religion in the Sinhala-Tamil conflict.

English was the official language of the country from 1815 to 1956. Though a colonial language, English continued to be the official language even after Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 as English was still widely used in government, administration, and higher education (Coperahewa, 2009).

During English rule Christian missionaries established English language schools in Sri Lanka to anglicise the indigenous population. Missionaries controlled most of the English educational institutions in the country until 1831. However, these schools conducted instruction bilingually in Sinhala or Tamil and English. A few private schools provided instruction in English. Local language schools were established under Dutch colonial rulers and were expanded by the British. The curricula of those schools used local languages rather than English. Most of Sri Lankan students were taught in vernacular schools and used either Sinhala or Tamil in the late nineteenth century. There were approximately 4000 vernacular schools during the colonial period. However, there were only 225 English schools at that time.

Instruction in English came to the secondary and tertiary levels, whereas primary education was conducted in the vernacular languages. The result was only a few school children were taught in English schools. At the height of the colonial era (1914) only 37,500 students attended English-medium schools, while 347,500 were in vernacular schools. On the eve of independence 180,000 pupils were found in English schools, while 720,000 attended vernacular schools. A limited number of qualified teachers, with limited resources teaching English tended to be located in urban schools. Whereas vernacular education was provided free, English school required tuition fees that most could not afford (Kularathna, 2002).

According to the Colebrook Commission (1829) government administration should be centralized in the colony and English should be the official language. A further report recommended that English be the primary medium of education in secondary school and university. At the time Government positions were open to local people who had an education background and proficiency in English. New English schools were established

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in Colombo, Kandy and Galle to fulfil the colonial aim of cultivating a native class fluent in English and learning Western culture. The English education offered more advantages for Sri Lankans to establish themselves in occupations based on education. A localized professional class emerged through the English education system. However, Sinhala and Tamil were used in communicating with elders, servants and monks whilst lower-middle and working class Sri Lankans, both Sinhala and Tamil, did not have access to learning English. Colonial administrations believed that access to the social mobility English education afforded must be restricted for rural youths because it was believed that even rudimentary English education would have disastrous effects, because it would lead to expectations of employment in areas other than manual labour when maintained labour was needed to maintain the plantations (Kularathna, 2002). However, this led to much resentment:

A large number of youth, especially those who came from the rural areas, expressed their resentments against continuing domination by the English speaking, western- oriented elites living in Colombo and other urban centres. This sense of anger is best described by the term ‘Kaduwa’or sward; a sense that English speaker always has class power in our society ‘to cut down’ the Sinhala and Tamil speaking majority

(The Report of the Presidential Commission on Youth, 1990, p.79). The recommendation of the Special Committee on Education in 1943 was that the

medium of instruction in the primary school be the mother tongue and English introduced as a language subject in all primary schools where it was not the medium of instruction. From 1950 this change was gradually extended beyond the primary level to the secondary level.

The high standing afforded the English language came increasingly under attack as Sri Lankans raised their political voice after independence. Consequently the native languages (Sinhala and Tamil) of the country’s majority and minority population were reintroduced as official languages. The 1956 Language Act established Sinhala only as the nation’s official language. In 1978 a legislative amendment amended the 1956 Act and Tamil became an official language too. This was strengthened by the 13th

Amendment to the Constitution which made Sinhala and Tamil official languages of Sri Lanka and English the link language (ESCP, 2008, p.48) (See section 3.4.5 for more details). In the 1990s when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) established a separate state in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, it too declared an official language policy, of Tamil only.

Despite Sinhala and Tamil being official languages English speakers had greater

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in 1977 first language speakers of English and those who received private English education were in privileged positions in multinational corporations.

The historical inequality of Sri Lankan language policy can be summarised as follows: The inequalities created by the dual language policy of the colonial era caused many frustrations and led to agitation for reforms in education. A recommendation made by a special committee to introduce Sinhala/Tamil as the medium of instruction at primary level was accepted by the British and enforced in the 1940’s. With independence gained in 1948, this decision was extended to the secondary level in the 1950’s and later to the universities. Thus the country experienced two extreme language policies ‘English only’ in the colonial era and ‘Sinhala/Tamil only’ during post-independence

(New Educational Act for General Education in Sri Lanka, 2009, p.69).

2.1.7 Teacher training in Sri Lanka

According to Balasooriya (2012) currently all teachers are recruited by the government for both National schools and schools managed by the Provincial Public Service Commission (PPSC). Most of the teachers graduated from National Colleges of Education (NCoE) and recognised universities. Under the rules of recruitment and deployment of teachers it is compulsory for all of them to serve in an under resourced rural area school for a period of three years. The National Institute of Education (NIE) also functions as a teacher training centre. The main purpose of creating the NIE was to establish a unique institute for capacity building of educational managers, teacher educators and teachers, design and develop school curricula and conduct policy research on education (http://www.nie.lk/pages/gen1.asp).

Table 2.6 in Appendix A shows the numbers of teachers by qualifications in government schools in 2010. 40,062 teachers were untrained in 2010 and there are almost three times as many highly qualified female teachers compared to their male counterparts. However, the number of untrained teachers reduced in 2012. The Education Minister Susil

Premajayantha formulated a national policy on teacher recruitment making a first degree mandatory for the recruitment of teachers from 2009. Table 2.7 below shows teachers by qualification in 2012.

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Table 2.7: Teacher by qualification (Source: Ministry of Education Information-Sri Lanka 2012) Graduate teachers 86,751 38.8% Trained teachers 128,152 57.4% Untrained teachers 5,833 2.6% Trainee teachers 2,597 1.2% Total 223,333 100%

Balasooriya (2012) has criticised the teacher training programme in the country.

‘Although the NCoEs and universities provide most of the teachers to the school system, it is apparent that teacher trainee intake to NCoEs or universities does not meet the country’s real teacher recruitment’ needs’ (p.144). Therefore, over the last few decades, there has been a teacher shortage for subjects like science, mathematics, technical subjects, English and aesthetics in Grades Six to Eleven.

2.2 England