Words of wisdom: landmark judgement

By Elmo de Silva  

It was reported in a Sunday English paper that Justice Mahinda Samyawardhena made the undermentioned comments in connection with a judgment quashing an Education Ministry’s directive making it compulsory to teach students in Sinhala or Tamil to the exclusion of English. 

This was consequent to an appeal made by parents of students at the Ashoka College, Horana. These memorable words of wisdom should be etched in gold as these reverses a concept that has being erroneously held for the last several years and brings home the honest truth. Several of such erudite judgements, which have appeared in the print media of late, are a shining beacon of hope to a country which is engulfed with a sense of utter hopelessness and despair. This is what Justice Samyawardhena said in his judgment, which is worth repeating over and over again.

“In my view, it is hypocrisy to make it compulsory for children of the underprivileged to study in the Sinhala or Tamil medium, while it making it possible for children of the elite and effluent to study in the English medium at international schools or overseas, may be, to keep the distance.”

“English is no longer just a language of the English, a legacy we could do without. Rather; it is the principal international language, of increasing opportunities all over the world. The comparative advantage we had with regard to English has been sacrificed at the altar of divisive linguistic nationalism, which I fear has contributed to our nation being deprived of a tool that could have helped us measurably.”

“While the privileged continued to benefit from the possession of this tool, the vast majority of our people, of all communities, had no access to it. We owe it to them and to the nation as a whole to take all possible steps, in the interest of equity as well as national prosperity, to set right this sad situation.” His Lordship went further to make several noteworthy comments on the country’s Education Policy, which I do not want to include in this essay. 

Let those who want to discard English, search their conscience and reflect on what Justice Samyawardhena has said in the light of globalisation, unbelievable rapid scientific and technological development in all fields of human activity, and that English is the vehicle to access the realities of the present in which live, and not shut the door of opportunity to generations to come.

It is reported that the late C.W.W Kannangara, educationist, intellectual, and sportsman in 1901 scored the highest marks in math and came first in the British Empire at the Cambridge examination. It is said that that he was deeply impressed by English literature and he may have studied the beautiful poem Grey’s Elegy. The following verse from this elegy reflected his upward struggle to greatness:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear

Full many a flower is blush unseen

And waste its sweetness in the desert air

C.W.W. Kannangara could not have achieved this if not for his knowledge of English. This is why in the Education Committee report of 1943 he recognised the need to give every child regardless of race, creed or status a knowledge of English as is given below. 

In 1942 an Education Committee chaired by C.W.W. Kannangara on the status of education in the country made the undermentioned recommendations. The report of the Committee was published in 1943. The following were the recommendations:

a)Education should be free from kindergarten to university

b)The mother tongue should be used as the medium of instruction in the primary schools

c)English should be taught in all schools from standard three

Recently, as reported in the print media, a senior and well-educated Minister has said, very correctly, in referring to the brain from the country that with the exception of Colombo there are more Sinhalese in Melbourne than any other city in Sri Lanka, and with the exception of Jaffna there are more Tamils in Toronto than any other city in Sri Lanka. While there are compelling economic reasons for the flight of, particularly the youth, from Sri Lanka   the need for furthering children’s education in the English medium contributes very substantially to this brain drain.

Instead of dwelling in the past it is time to institute measures to rectify the situation. I am not an educationists, but having some teaching experience I may suggest the following as a layman.

• Teach at least one subject in English from kindergarten to the advanced level class
• Have interesting programs in simple English in the Sinhalese and Tamil television channels
• The Sinhalese and Tamil newspapers should have a magazine in simple English on subjects that particularly interest children. This should be free of charge
• Emphasis that it is quite in order to have one’s own accent when speaking English. Most persons, where English is not the national language of the country, speak with different accents
• Train teachers to teach English and obtain expert advice on this. We do not need excellence
• Have mobile libraries with books in simple English to go to the villagers and encourage people to read, stressing the importance of learning English
• Depoliticise the teaching of English
• Permit any schools to have English as the medium of instruction
• N.G.O’s be given the encouragement to educate parents at village level in English

(The writer can be reached at [email protected].)