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| Saturday, 9 October 2004 |
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by Manjula Fernando The Education Ministry will bid leading members of the corporate world to join in school adoption programs to enhance English and IT education in State schools. Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Tara de Mel, Chief Guest at the opening of the third international conference of the Sri Lanka English Language Teachers Association (SLELTA) at Hotel Galadari yesterday, said the Government has taken many initiatives to improve English education in State schools' system and linking with the private sector was one of the major programs they have in mind. "We intend to initiate this program through the BOI. Schools selected for adoption program by the leading industries will benefit from their inputs," she said. The Secretary said when the new policies of the Ministry were being discussed in April 2004, English teaching was placed very high in the list of priorities. Introduction of the English medium teaching starting from GCE Advanced level and then Ordinary level, in State schools under the on-going education reforms program was a great achievement on everyone's part, she observed. Dr. De Mel said "There were great opposition to the initiative at first, but despite the criticism we knew English medium teaching was badly desired by a large group of people, including those who opposed it." Secretary said they were planning to arrange for the International schools to conduct training sessions for government English teachers in line with the government's on-going efforts to revive the English language teacher training sector. The conference on "English in the Multilingual environment" held from October 8 to 10 at Hotel Galadari is jointly organised by the British Council and SLELTA. The three-day program consists of workshops, plenary sessions and panel discussions chaired by eminent international and local resource persons. Nearly 450 participants, English teachers from State and private sector schools from Sri Lanka and other countries are attending the conference which is aimed at improving English teaching skills and imparting global trends of English language teaching. The participants will deliberate and discuss issues and concerns of importance in the field of English language teaching. SLELTA Chairperson Ryhana Raheem, British Council Director Tony O'Brien and Vice Chairperson Nirmalee Hettiarachchi were also present at the inauguration. |
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