The government has launched a programme with a short term goal of enhancing the job oriented English language skills of rural youth in a bid to have 50,000 persons ready to take up jobs in the IT based services sector, particularly in BPOs, within the next three years. The strategic framework and fast track activity plan of this programme, ‘English as a Life Skill’, was released yesterday and is an initiative of the Presidential Secretariat and the Board of Investment (BOI). By the end of the month, the English and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad (EFLU), India, will set up a Centre for English Language Training (CELT) in Colombo funded by the Indian government with infrastructure provided by the Sri Lankan government.EFLU, which specialises in job oriented English language training, has set up CELTs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam as well. Thirty one English teachers will be selected to undergo training at the CELT and they in turn will be responsible in taking the new modules and methods of teaching English as a skill required to secure jobs to the 21,000 English teachers posted in government schools, said the Coordinator and Convenor of the Presidential Task Force on English as a Life Skill, Advisor to the President, Sunimal Fernando. This will be a part of the long term plans which will also retrain English teachers from around the island. The plan points out that various incentive schemes and salary increments have to be offered in order to encourage teachers to adopt modern training methods, which the government will have to formulate with the help of the Indian English language training institutes. And still ahead, the plan proposes to conduct English medium streams at all levels in schools which will push students to improve their English language skills.Representatives of over 1,600 private educational institutes teaching English from around the country, from Ampara, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Hambantota and Monaragala, attended the launch of this programme yesterday. They had the opportunity of meeting representatives of 12 institutes from India specialising in English language training. The programme seeks to create private partnerships and joint ventures between the institutes so as to disseminate English language skills to rural areas under the BOI banner. These partnerships and joint ventures will be given tax holidays ranging from 5 to 12 years depending on the number of students trained every year and the 100 percent transfer tax on land purchases will be exempt for investments over US$ 2 million. The programme will also take steps to attract Indian BPO companies to invest in Sri Lanka. The strategic framework and fast track activity plan says that the second largest Indian BPO company, WIPRO, has agreed to invest in Sri Lanka if a minimum of 500 vacancies requiring English communication skills can be filled. Chairman of the BOI, Dhammika Perera, said that there was a bottle neck in the development of the BPO sector because although the country had a literacy rate of 90 percent the standard of English was not up to the required levels expected by BPO companies. Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the President, said that never in country’s history had the G.C.E. Ordinary Level pass rate tipped the 50 percent mark. "The performance of the education system is dismal. Only 54 percent of the teachers employed in the government sector can read and understand a document written in English," he said. The Country Director of Ma Foi Management Consultants Lanka Private Ltd, Raj Gopal, said that the Indian based HR consultancy firm, specialising in recruitment for BPOs, said that in India, one out of five got through the first interview while in Sri Lanka it was one out of 15. He said that skills in communicating in English made the difference. The policy document of this Presidential Task Force says that business chambers will be encouraged to establish links with BPO companies from India and other countries to invest in Sri Lanka, parallel to the progress made by the training programmes under as a Life Skill’ programme. |
