In Sri Lanka, Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages, but an uneasy calm exists between the official government and Tamil terrorists.
The children who are living in Sri Lanka horrified their life by a raging civil war that is going on for several decades. Biggest problem in Sri Lanka is the most of the people in North and East mainly use Tamil Language and South and West predominantly use SinhalaLanguage.
Since the school curriculum design today with medium of study in schools is either Sinhala or Tamil depending on the native language. In this situation created these Sinhalese and Tamil people divided further more from their language barriers.
According to 2007 World Bank report 23% of population live below national poverty line and also urban population only 15% of 19 millions populations. Mainly children who are living in rural areas don’t have the same luxury like city children such as library facilities or good school with better facilities. Therefore, rural underprivileged children have less resource than children who are living in cities since majority live in rural areas.
Common language is needed to effect deep community commitment to a new concept or practice for an identified people or segment. In this case it might be English. As the world gets even flatter due to the Internet, tourism, and international relations, English is becoming a more vital tool in everyone’s daily life. After all the havoc and unrest of more than two decades, “English” could play a pivotal role and will be the link language in bringing people together from all ethnic backgrounds in Sri Lanka.
Rural schools have only basic facilities and mostly understaffed. Urban school attract most of the qualified teachers because difficulties in transportation, accommodation and the lack of basic facilities in rural schools. But Sri Lanka continued commitment to free education has been enhanced by extending its scope to include the provision of free textbooks and free school uniforms.
Also, we believed if English is introduced to underprivileged children at young age, which we expected to create their courage, enthusiasm and motivation to build- up their confidence, with other ethnic group as well as preparing the passage to the critical foundation for improving their access to education, computer literacy and the Internet as well as social status. We believe that small libraries with English children’s books can be motivating children for reading and be valuable learning resource to widen their knowledge. In particular, libraries, which target ESL learning in school settings, appear to be a promising approach for complementing the existing formal schooling system.
