Keywords

8.1 Introduction

Sri Lanka experienced forces of colonization intermittently throughout its history. In modern times, it witnessed colonization by various nations of the world. Amongst them, three nationalities – Portuguese (1517 – late sixteenth century), Dutch (1638–1796), and British (1803–1948) – placed their mark firmly on Sri Lanka by introducing their socioeconomic, political and cultural practices. Of these three nationalities, the British, who occupied the country for over 150 years, had the most influence on Sri Lanka’s culture, languages, and education. The country, then known as Ceylon, received independence from the British and became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations on 4 February 1948.

Sri Lanka, with an estimated population of 20.86 million people (Department of Census and Statistics 2010), has had a diverse ethnic composition with three ethnic groups – Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim – that make up to 99 % of the total population. At present, the majority community, Sinhala, comprises slightly more than three fourths or 76 % of the people. The Tamils comprise two groups – Sri Lankan Tamils, who are long settled descendents from South India, and Indian Tamils, most of whom are migrant workers brought to Sri Lanka under the British colonial rule (Somasegaram 1969). These two groups comprise 15.5 % of the population. Moors or Sri Lankan Muslims’ origin in Sri Lanka can be traced back to the Arab traders of the seventh and eighth centuries (Azeez 1969; De Silva 1977; Silva 1969). They comprise 7.5 % of the country’s population. The other minor ethnic groups include Burghers, a community of mixed European descent, and Veddas, who are regarded as the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. These groups account for less than 1 % of the population. The Sinhalese use Sinhala, which is an Indo-Aryan language, as their mother- tongue, and more than 90 % of them are Buddhists. The Tamils speak the Dravidian language of Tamil and are overwhelmingly Hindus. However, there is a sizable Christian population of both Sinhalese and Tamils dating back to the Portuguese colonization of the island in the early 1500s. The followers of Christianity, who form approximately 7 % of the population, are from among the Sinhalese, Tamil, and Burgher communities. The Muslims usually prefer to speak in Tamil and are all strong adherents of Islam.

There is much cultural diversity in the country, and religion pervades many aspects of life as it constitutes a basic element of this diversity. The sociocultural history of the Sinhalese is inseparably intertwined with the religious practices of Buddhism in the country. Hinduism is closely related to the distinctive cultural systems of neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Muslims in Sri Lanka, ethnically largely Malay, have preserved the Islamic religious doctrines, while adapting to the social environment of Sri Lanka. Changes resulting from other forces such as globalization, neo-colonialism, modernization, capitalism, and technology constitute other forms of cultural diversity. More importantly, the different languages and cultures have influenced each other. Portuguese and Dutch have melded with local languages to construct a Creole (Peiris 1969; Peter 1969) that is still used in some circles of mixed-race communities. English has mixed with Tamil and Sinhala to form a Sri Lankan English that is now well systematized (Gunasekera 2005; Kandiah 1979). More importantly, Sinhala and Tamil have mixed and influenced each other, according to Sri Lankan linguist Suseendirarajah (see Balasubramaniam et al. 1999, pp. 272–280). Having been in close contact in Sri Lanka, these languages have adopted many lexical and grammatical structures from each other, losing their respective family differences.

Primordial ties and rights of people based on ethnicity, language and religion have been the root cause of many wars and disputes between ethno-racial groups in human history. Sri Lanka too witnessed 30 years of war and bloodshed in its modern history for which, according to many, denial of language rights for the minority Tamils has been largely responsible. Although there are other factors like devolution of power, inequitable access to education and social justice, which are seen as equally responsible, the research literature and popular sentiments of people place a strong emphasis on the denial of language rights for the minority Tamils as the single most important factor. At present, Sinhala (sometimes referred to as Sinhalese) and Tamil are the two official languages of Sri Lanka. In a move to politically appease the majority Sinhalese people, Sinhala was made the official language by the Official Language Act in 1965, popularly known as Sinhala only Act (Government of Sri Lanka 1956), which in the eyes of many had both immediate and long term consequences. The situation was later rectified by raising Tamil to the status of an official language and English to a ‘link language’ by the 13th amendment to the constitution in 1987 (Government of Sri Lanka 1987).

The armed conflict between the majority Sinhalese and the Minority Tamils ended in May 2009, and since then, the promotion of interethnic harmony has been taken up as a the key responsibility by the political leadership. This has also been greatly anticipated by the Sri Lankan public. Political discussions and common anticipation regarding the promotion of interethnic peace and efforts at nation building need to involve the active promotion of Sinhala among the Tamils and Tamil among the Sinhalese. However, this is still confined only to discussion tables. We begin this chapter with a review of how the ethnic communities and their native languages co-existed, breeding mutual respect and harmony among the Sinhalese and the Tamil communities in social, educational and administrative spheres during the precolonial times. We then move on to discuss the developments that occurred around these languages in Sri Lanka during colonial and postcolonial times. The discussion of colonial times pertains mainly to the period of the British. The language education policy of the British, and the united struggle of the Sinhalese and Tamils for coexistence and survival of their local languages in education, will be discussed. Postcolonial times explore how these united efforts by the locals were threatened by political and racial tendencies. In doing so, we attempt to explore the popular sentiments expressed in the media towards the teaching and learning of the each other’s language.

8.2 Local Languages During Precolonial Times

Sri Lanka has always been home to a plural multiethnic and multireligious society. Because of the historic fluidity in migration and marriage patterns, the attributes of the ethnoreligious groups are widely distributed. As the historical cannons of Mahawamsa and Chulawamsa Footnote 1 suggest, the majority and minority groups in different regions and times lived amicably and were inseparable microelements of the macro ethnoreligious and ethnolinguistic sociopolitical milieu of precolonial Sri Lanka. Also, with pragmatically motivated language policies based on necessity, mutual respect, and, coexistence, ethnolinguistic affiliations of people were secondary. To a great extent, social groups were not determined by peoples’ linguistic codes, as ethnolinguistic hybridity was the norm. Language policies and planning were not conducted officially, as in modern times. However, the unofficial and equal treatment of languages bred mutual respect and congeniality among communities through promoting linguistic and communicative competence of all languages involved in social, administrative, and educational spheres. As one can discern from Mahawamsa and Chulawamsa, this competence was considered essential and constituted a large part of knowledge and learning. For example, the Mahawamsa presents the great Tamil King Elara (204 BC–164 BC) as someone who respected the native Sinhala nobles with the same stateliness as his Tamil associates.

During precolonial times (500 BC–1505 AD), Sinhala and Tamil, the two languages spoken by the three ethnic groups belonging to three religious faiths, had equal social importance. There was no racial discrimination between Sinhalese and Tamils (Perniola 1983). Except for some general terms to identify a “‘kind’ or ‘group’, the meaning of which varied according to context”, premodern South Asian languages did not have the language categories found in the English language to distinguish between race and religion (Rogers 1994, p. 13). However, there is evidence to say that claims of descent that Sinhalese were from the Aryans and the Tamils were from the Dravidians prevailed in the Sinhalese and Tamil consciousness which led to the development of Sinhalese and Tamil group identities (Samaraweera 1977). However, they did not produce ongoing tensions or clashes in society. According to Samaraweera, underneath the occasional bickering was a strong ethnocultural and ethnolinguistic ambience that promoted strong social and economic relations between the two groups. The Moors also had harmonious relations with Sinhalese Buddhists who spoke Sinhala and Tamil Hindus who spoke Tamil. There is also some evidence to suggest that centuries before colonisation, non-Sinhalese groups were incorporated into Sinhalese social groups while being left enough room to maintain their non-Sinhalese status (Rogers 1994).

Therefore, language was no barrier for ethnoreligious coexistence, mutual understanding, and respect in social spheres among the three communities. One might wonder how these three communities cohabited and communicated with each other while maintaining the social and economic relations mentioned earlier, when there was no evidence of a link language to bridge any existing gaps. We find evidence to suggest that all languages were more or less spread across the country, and all three communities were sufficiently competent in each other’s language to achieve communicative goals socially. For example, Tamil language and its script were widespread in the coastal areas north of Colombo where the ‘majority’ Sinhalese lived (Rogers 1994). There is also evidence to suggest that the classical literature of the two languages mutually complemented and influenced each other. This mutual complementation of Sinhala and Tamil found in literary works also shows that the language competence of some sections of the society was not limited to conversational interactions for mere survival.

By the seventh century, education had spread into every village in precolonial Sri Lanka (Kuruppu 1969) and the educational practices of the people centred on indigenous educational systems based on peoples’ ethnoreligious affiliations. The Sinhalese indigenous education system was based on Buddhist educational practice, and Tamil and Muslim indigenous educational practices were based on Hinduism and Islam respectively. For the Sinhalese, temples constructed in every village became the nucleus of culture and learning (Ariyapala 1969; de Silva 1969), and social practices of the lay people were built around Buddhist practices. The Buddhist temple was the exclusive place for formal education for monks and laymen alike, where the imparting of knowledge became the sole responsibility of the Buddhist monks (Reagan 2000). Education was imparted in Pirivenas, a form of temple school that can be identified as similar to modern universities (Kuruppu 1969).

The increasing migrations from South India during the ninth and tenth centuries AD brought Hinduism, its culture, and educational practices to Sri Lanka. For Hindus, too, Hindu temples were a prominent part of life in all parts of Sri Lanka, where they became the nucleus of cultural activity (Somasegaram 1969). Although Hindus generally consider Vedas as the source of all religious knowledge, the Tamil Saivites consider ‘thirumurais’ the sacred body of religious literature (De Silva 1977; Flood 2002). For Muslims, who had established themselves in Sri Lanka during the seventh century AD (Azeez 1969; De Silva 1977), the holy Qur’an is not only a book of religious maxims or a collection of devotional hymns, but also a code of life laying down the correct pattern of conduct (Azeez 1969; Kysilka and Qadri 1997). Education for Muslims begins with the Qur’an and the mosques (Tibawi 1972). In Islam, religious and secular education cannot be differentiated. They were considered inseparable and neither should be emphasised at the expense of the other (Al-Afandi 1980). In precolonial Sri Lanka, the Muslim indigenous education system was organised under ‘Maktab’ and ‘Madrasa’ where the curriculum comprised grammar, literature, logic, Islamic law, principles of Islamic law, Qur’anic commentary, mysticism, and religious philosophy.

The media of instruction in the three indigenous educational systems were the languages of the three communities – Sinhala and Tamil – while an equal importance was placed on learning the language other than their own. For example, Vijayabahu Pirivena (1412–1467 AC) had, as part of its curriculum, language studies, which included grammar, poetry, and drama of Sanskrit, Miigadhi (Pali and Prakrit), Sinhala, and Tamil (Kuruppu 1969). Sinhalese people unacquainted with Pali, Sanskrit, and Tamil were considered ignorant. The educated wrote books (e.g., SubhasitayaFootnote 2) for those who did not know Tamil. Proficiency in languages other than people’s own, especially Pali and Sanskrit, was considered as an essential qualification of a truly learned man (Abhayawardhana 1969).

Not only were syllabi in place for students to learn these languages, but also the staff were well versed in these languages. For example, history reveals that the well-known Buddhist priest Rahula was well versed in six languages besides Sinhala, Tamil, and Pali (Guruge 1969). Another example is the thirteenth century Sinhala grammatical treatise Sidatsangara (thirteenth century AD), which shows that the author was an eminent Buddhist monk who possessed a wide grammatical knowledge of the languages Sinhala, Sanskrit, Pali, and Tamil, and also shows a very good example of the nature of mutual language resourcing that took place between the community languages and classical languages during precolonial times. The author of Sidatsangara consults the grammars of various languages in writing the treatise. There is evidence to believe that in defining ‘Nipa’ (articles) the author had been influenced by Sanskrit grammar; in defining ‘Kriya’ (verbs) by Pali language; and in defining ‘Sandi’ (euphonic combinations) by the Tamil grammar Virasoliam (Silva 1969), a work of Tamil Buddhist scholars. Another example of language resourcing was the production of a seventeenth century didactic poem Subhasitaya, most of the sources of which can be traced back to Sanskrit sources and a Tamil poem called ‘Naladiyar’ (Peiris 1969). The level of proficiency and competence in the languages, especially those that were classical, and the command exhibited by authors of ancient grammars between the tenth and thirteenth centuries suggest that the importance placed on learning languages, mainly those that were not their mother tongues, dated back many centuries before this.

Administrative circles in precolonial Sri Lanka also demonstrated plurilingual practices of the communities involved. Ethnoreligious affiliations did not prevent people from being recognised and respected as rulers, and neither did their ethnolinguistic codes. In administrative spheres, all languages had equal importance. According to Indrapala (2005) the status of the Tamil language in the Sinhalese kingdom was a great example of this fact. He mentions that a record inscribed in Sinhala on the walls of the Lankathilaka temple was provided with a full Tamil translation on the same walls. There is also evidence to suggest that Sinhalese high officials in ancient courts of Kings signed their names in Tamil. Sinhalese issued decrees in Tamil and doing so was considered a true characteristic of advancement: “It is significant that even in the reign of the proud defender of the country’s independence, namely, Vijayabahu I, an inscription was published in the Tamil language. So were the edicts of the successors of Vijayabahu issued in Tamil” (Guruge 1969, p. 235).

Colonization and the subsequent postcolonial trauma of nation building have damaged much of this fluidity in ethnolinguistic identities. In the next section of this chapter we explore the extent to which the mutual respect the speakers of Sinhala and Tamil had for each other was compromised by policy decisions that made local languages compete for social, educational and administrative dominance and. at times, for survival and co-existence.

8.3 Local Languages During Colonial Times

When the British conquered Sri Lanka in 1815 and brought the previously three kingdoms (Ruhunu, Maya & Pihiti) into one nation-state, they raised the status of English over the two local languages of the country. English became the language of administration, education, law, commerce and polite social discourse for the English-educated. The local languages – Sinhala and Tamil – served the purposes of rural monolinguals and the few Sinhala and Tamil bilinguals.

Although initially the British allowed some regional autonomy for the native ethnic communities, this practice had to be abandoned due to economic reasons. The Colebrook-Cameron commission that was appointed to recommend economic reforms in 1832 believed that administration should be centralized, with English as the working official language (see Wickramasuriya 1976) to streamline the island’s colonial administration with the rest of the British empire. To minimise the gap between the locals and the colonial administration, the commission recommended that native administrators should be trained for the lower level jobs of interpreters, court clerks and regional headmen. In order to develop English language proficiency for individuals in these positions, an English education system was set up in the secondary and tertiary levels. However, English education quickly became a ‘craze’ in the country where the proficiency in it brought about social status and economic affluence (Wickramasuriya 1976).

In order to establish the English language deeply in the Sri Lankan society, colonial administrators also promoted the values and discourses that undergird the language. British colonial occupation of Sri Lanka saw the formation of several school systems in the country (Ruberu 1969; Warnasuriya 1969); English-medium schools for the children of British expatriates and children of local employees of the colonial administration, mixed media (English & Sinhala/Tamil languages) schools for lower middle class, local students (Perusinghe 1969), and, vernacular schools for the large majority of Sinhalese and Tamil students where only local languages were used. In general, all English-language schools that prepared students for positions in the colonial administration were regarded as providing a superior education while vernacular schools were seen as inferior, a distinction made on the basis of the social status of the parents rather than students’ intelligence (Wijetunga 1969). With the expansion of colonial government administration, more and more jobs became available for which the only requisite qualification was English language proficiency (Ruberu 1969). This created an increased demand for more and more English schools from the upper classes for their children and brought private schools into existence to provide English language as both a curriculum focus and medium of instruction. However, due to the limitations of resources and native English teachers, the few English schools were concentrated in the towns, leaving the rural folk vernacular-educated and monolingual.

There was no value attached to the teaching of vernacular languages in English and Anglo-Vernacular schools (De Alwis 1969). It was not only believed by the educationists in the colonial government that Sinhalese and Tamil literature were full of ‘filth’ and were not conducive to the moral and spiritual well-being in the country but also that the teaching of them would have a negative effect on the acquisition of ‘good English’. For example, De Alwis (1969, p. 976) quotes Rev. Father C. H. Lytton, the Rector of St. Joseph’s College as saying:

I would exclude the Vernaculars from all English Schools. They will not be introduced into St. Joseph’s College. Our course is arranged so that the best students may be rendered fit to complete their education in an English University. Tamil literature not only does not elevate the mind, but degrades it by obscenities with which it is replete

He also quotes (1969, p. 976), Rev. W. A. Stone, Warden of St Thomas College as having a similar view on both Sinhalese and Tamil literature:

We have the belief that higher education in Sinhalese literature and Tamil literature is not for the moral or spiritual welfare in Ceylon from our point of view but rather the opposite. If you wish to find filth in literature you will find it equally in both and those who know most about it are forced to admit it. I would rather teach French novels.

The native languages were fighting a losing battle against the English language which was growing in importance and prestige. However, the Sinhalese and Tamils were united in their efforts to fight for their languages, and significantly, the schools that were operated in the local language media (Sinhala & Tamil) survived and remained alive until the British colonial times ended (Perusinghe 1969).

Thus, during the British colonial occupation in the country there were distinct traditions in education as far as English Language Teaching (ELT) is concerned: one for the privileged few, perpetuating or leading to affluence and positions of prestige; the other for the under-privileged majority, designed in the minds of many (Perusinghe 1969) to reconcile the poor to their poverty. This resulted in a huge division in the country between those who knew English and were socially and economically capable or could strive to be so, and those who did not – and were marooned in their social and economic disadvantage. However, the association of English with colonial administrative hierarchy, with the social upper classes (Karunaratne 2003), and by extension with opportunities for locals of socioeconomic advancement continued beyond independence.

8.4 Local Languages and Ethnic Conflict

When Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948, the Sri Lankan polity comprised the local elites who were English educated and for whom the language was not an important issue. However, with the need to pacify the majority Sinhalese monolinguals and to secure the political power, Sinhala was made the official language in 1956. This denied Tamil the official language status and the two communities who formed a common alliance and showed characteristics of a collective identity in the face of the spread of English were divided. The division was so severe that according to many this was the root cause for the Tamil insurgency that engulfed the island nation for over 30 years. The ‘official language’ issue, which widened the patterns of coexistence between the two main communities in the country also brought about policies that led to unfair treatment of Tamil speaking people of the country.

Apart from fuelling an ethnic conflict, it also affected the trilingual situation of the country. Although Sinhala became the official language, and Sinhala and Tamil became the media of instruction in primary and secondary schools for the two ethnic groups, English kept its prestige in the society. Sinhala became the symbolic official language where the elite positions in the society were still dominated by the English-educated Sinhala and Tamil middle class. The Tamils who were genuinely affected by the 1956 Sinhala Only Act were the monolingual Tamils. When Sinhala became the official language, it deprived the Tamils of more things than the right to the mother tongue. Sinhala started to act as a gatekeeper; proficiency in it was required for jobs in the Government service. Tamils also had to show proficiency in Sinhalese for admission into the Universities in the country, and it created for them an additional burden of learning English for social mobility.

When the Tamil insurgence began in the late 1970s, they advocated a policy of Tamil Only or Pure Tamil (no code switching or code meshing with Sinhala or English) to provide material advantages for the monolingual Tamils in the North and East of the country where they ran a defacto state. In the absence of true multilingualism during post-independence, the insurgents believed that a separate state was needed to safeguard their mother tongue. The need to use only Tamil for formal and informal purposes in the community was publicly insisted on; local Tamil newspapers were used as the media for announcing the new ‘pure’ Tamil words that should be used after a given date, and billboards and permanent public announcements had to be changed immediately after this date (see Canagarajah 2005 for a complete discussion).

8.5 Local Languages in Post-war Sri Lanka

Popular sentiments in newspapers in post-war Sri Lanka regarding the promotion of local languages are divided along four preferences. One preference is along the idea by the Sinhala and Tamil hardliners who wish to champion their own language – an idea that prevailed even before Sinhala was made the official language. The second preference is shared by those who are willing to promote bilingualism in Sinhala and Tamil for social cohesion and co-existence. A third group prefers the promotion of English at the expense of the local languages for interethnic harmony and economic development. The fourth and the most popular is the preference for promoting trilingualism.

Post-war Sri Lanka represents a very low proficiency rate in the second local language. According to a report (Prematunga 2011) in The Daily News, an English Daily, 90 % of the Majority Sinhalese can communicate effectively neither in Tamil nor in English. 70 % of the minority Tamils cannot communicate in Sinhala. However, the two communities show an extreme desire to learn each other’s language. For example, The Daily News (Fernando 2011a) reports a survey conducted across the country by an independent research organization for the Presidential Secretariat in August 2010. According to this survey, over 80 % of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people living in both majority Sinhala and majority Tamil speaking areas expressed a strong desire for both themselves and their children to be conversant in both national languages. The newspaper also reports that the reasons given for learning each other’s language are not of utilitarian but of integrative nature and a majority of respondents expressed a willingness to live in mixed communities. The communities support the development of local languages as the languages of common discourse and communication in the country.

In Sri Lanka, schooling is compulsory for children from 5 to 14 years of age, and it is free from kindergarten to the university level in all government and government-aided institutions (Coperahewa 2009). The general school education system comprises primary (Grades 1–5), junior secondary (Grades 6–9) and senior secondary (Grades 10–11), and collegiate (Grades 12–13). Until the collegiate level, the instruction follows a common curriculum made up of different subjects like health science, religion and mathematics etc. At the collegiate level the students are streamed into science (bio-science and engineering), commerce and liberal arts (humanities) courses. There are provisions for these schools to operate in three media: Sinhala, Tamil and English. However, according the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education census (2010), the number of schools that use a single medium of instruction (Sinhala or Tamil) far outweighs the number of schools that use more than one medium of instruction (see Table 8.1).

Table 8.1 No. of government schools on media of instruction
Full size table

The polity realises the limitations of sticking with the historical policies that led to a disastrous conflict. It responds to the survey results with a ‘Ten Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka (2012–2021)’. The plan is expected to provide “the impetus for the equal development and promotion of the two national languages in all spheres of life” while acknowledging English as a ‘life skill’ (Fernando 2011b, p. 1). The Government’s national plan is expected to be carried out in three phases: a pilot stage, expansion stage and a consolidation stage. The pilot stage which is the first phase of the plan (years 1–4) involves the establishment of two agencies: Language Agency of Sri Lanka (LASL) and National Agency for Language Research and Training (NALRT) to oversee and coordinate policy and practices pertaining to the teaching of Sinhala, Tamil and English languages and to strengthen the existing institutions that teach these languages. Phase one will also determine the existing resources, capacities available in the country, teacher recruitment and training, and restructuring of existing language courses. Teacher recruitment and training will involve the establishment of a ‘National Cadre of Second Language Teachers’.

Phase two will involve the establishment of two other bodies: National Translation Bureau (NTB) and National Foundation for the Promotion of Trilingual Society (NFPTS). The primary task of the NTB will be to translate textbooks and literature between the three languages while the NFPTS will take trilingual skills to the private sector through formal training programs and support programs through religious institutions. Phase two will also introduce the second national language and English as compulsory subjects in three key public examinations: Grade 5 Scholarship, General Certificate in Education – Ordinary Level (GCE –O/L), and General Certificate in Education – Advance Level (GCE –A/L). During this phase, new university entrants will receive training in the second national language and English. It also expected to introduce electronic learning and teaching programs based on Information and Communication Technology to schools with shortages of teachers. Phase three, the last 2 years of the plan, will implement strategies to achieve sociocultural integration and reinforcement.

8.6 Trilingualism and Its Challenges

The ten year plan, although it displays the potential of success on a theoretical and conceptual level, is riddled with practical challenges. One of the most conspicuous challenges relates to the availability of resources.

According to The Island (Provincial Correspondent 2010), another English Daily in Sri Lanka, almost all Government Sinhala medium schools in the Kurunegala District lack Tamil language teachers. It also states that there is a requirement of about 3,500 teachers to satisfy the needs of Sinhalese students learning Tamil in the North Western Province of the country alone. Daily News also reports the shortage of language teachers in the country as follows:

…the country has for a long time been boasting of a programme of teaching the second national language (Sinhala to Tamil and Tamil to Sinhala) to all children in schools it is estimated that the bilingual teaching programme has only around 4,000 inadequately trained teachers whereas the school system would need at least 23,000 well trained teachers to achieve this task with any degree of success (Fernando 2011a).

As for the Education Ministry, the policy to educate all Sinhala students in Tamil and all Tamil students in Sinhala, has been in existence for years. But this is not the reality. There are roughly 26,000 English language teachers in the country. But there are less than 4,000 teachers capable of teaching either of the national languages as second languages. In fact Tamil and Sinhala are not taught as second languages in over 7,000 schools (Prematunga 2011).

There are many reasons for the shortage of trained teachers in the country. Studies of teacher education in Sri Lanka (e.g., Tatto 2002; Tatto and Dharmadasa 1995; Tatto et al. 1993; Wijetunge and Alahakoon 2009) reveal important elements operating in English-language teachers’ professional and personal lives. For example, Tatto and Dharmadasa (1995) see teachers as caught up within tensions between state control and teacher autonomy. Central authorities were concerned mainly with the recruitment and education of teachers, where to deploy them, and how to retain them. For their part, teachers as a body did not share these matters as primary concerns. Rather, their perceived problems were with working conditions which they saw as poor, with curricula that they experienced as centralised and believed to be rigid, their salaries that they saw as low in comparison with other opportunities in the workforce for Sri Lankans with similar skills and qualifications, and general confusion across the society surrounding the professional status of teaching.

Such tensions between the concerns of the system and teachers often lead to collisions. For example, where the intentions of the authorities fail to address expectations that teachers have of themselves, their profession and themselves in the profession there is likely to be reluctance on teachers’ part to engage with their core business as teachers. In most instances, teaching is a job that brings in a permanent income, and the quality of teachers’ work reflects the quality of training they received prior to their deployment. Although attempts are made for the demand to be met, a provision of qualified and competent teachers resulting in an equal distribution across a country is problematic due to financial and logistical problems. Therefore, arguably, one of the challenges facing the promotion of trilingualism is the absence of teachers suitable for the job.

Another challenge will be the attitudes people have towards each other’s languages and the English language. For example, tensions based on ethnoracial identities and politics still play a major part in post-war Sri Lanka. According to an interview given by a famous Tamil politician to ‘Divina’, A Sinhalese Daily (Jinapriya 2012), the promotion of trilingualism is not easy because the reasons for doing so are not without political ramifications. An excerpt from the English translation of the interview is presented below:

Politician: Without knowing Tamil and English you can go to Jaffna and do something, Can’t you? That’s what the Government is doing now. The Government is talking about a trilingual policy now. But where is such a policy? People like me speak a little (in the three languages). Where else can you see a trilingual policy?

Reporter: Trilingual policy is a recent one. Won’t it take a while to see its effectiveness?

Politician: Where does it work? The teaching of Tamil to Sinhalese children and Sinhalese to Tamil children should happen equally. Can we call ourselves trilingual by asking Tamil Children to learn Sinhalese? Tell me, in how many Sinhala schools do you teach Tamil?

The sentiments expressed in this interview are not new by any means. Although expressed by a Tamil politician, they represent the sentiments of Sinhalese hardliners as well. They are not new because there is evidence for this kind negative competition (if you teach A to B you must teach B to A) in Sri Lanka’s history. For example, according to Kearny (1978), soon after the Sinhala Only Act was passed, the Federal Party (Tamil) highlighted the importance of Tamil by asking the Tamil people to refuse to study and teach the Sinhalese language. It seems therefore that the success of Sinhala and Tamil bilingualism or Sinhala, Tamil and English trilingualism in the country would most certainly hinge on a collective and mutual understanding of the potential these languages have for interethnic harmony.

The comments of the politician also shed more light on the issue of resources. He questions the number of Sinhala schools in which Tamil is taught as a subject. More than a policy issue, in post war Sri Lanka this now seems a question of the availability of resources. When most of the foreign aid for education is directed towards the promotion, teaching and learning of English as a second language (see Liyanage 2010; Perera and Canagarajah 2010), the funds for resources for the teaching of local languages have to be found and managed from within the country. The problem created by the availability of resources is confounded by the material value locals attach to their own languages which in turn plays a big part in determining the success of trilingualism in post-war Sri Lanka. For example, it is only natural for people to weigh options in terms of the material benefits these languages bring to them. A reader of the online version of Lankadeepa (2011), another Sinhalese Daily has left the following comment:

Why do we have to learn Tamil and Sinhalese, they won’t give us jobs. It is English we need. They want us to learn Sinhala, and ask us if we know English at the interviews. They should teach us English. (Translated from Sinhala)

Of course, English language attracts the benefits and prestige both locally and internationally, and the two local languages, although not defeated, lag behind in the race. If the planned local policies are implemented well, proficiency in local languages will help locals secure government jobs which pay lower salaries than the private sector. Securing jobs in the private sector is hard for people who are proficient only in the local languages – especially when they have to compete with the English proficient urban elite who are the products of the country’s international school system and foreign universities.

8.7 Conclusion

Sri Lankans’ shared awareness, competence and use of each other’s languages was spawned in historically-appropriate adjustments made by communities merging for pragmatic reasons and real purposes. This chapter has its focus on educational issues surrounding the promotion of local languages for interethnic harmony in Sri Lanka. Government policies and public sentiments explored here indicate that the dialectic between political ambitions and community aspirations, where denial of primordial rights to the minority group resulted in depravation of economic prosperity and social advancement, culminated in a 30 year old war. In post war Sri Lanka, the majority of people realise the policy mistakes that have been made.

The situation is more complex and complicated than meets the eye. The promotion of local languages would certainly please all three communities. However, the attitudes people have towards their own languages, or rather the learning of them, in the face of the material benefits the foreign language English has for them brings about other challenges. These challenges are now configured as a global iteration of what previously had been a national concern – a need to be competitive in international trade. A deliberate manipulation of local languages and their systematic spread presents as a solution to help Sri Lanka achieve long lasting peace between ethnic groups. However, it is English that is at the centre of what people need to master for economic prosperity and social mobility, and what the nation does in maintaining its balance on the world stage. Thus, the concern of whether or not concerted effort and resources should be placed in the service of integrating Sinhala and Tamil languages as a compulsory part of Sri Lanka’s educational system teeters and falls – not because of any residual concerns about whether they are valued by the communities, but rather because the current geopolitical trends have shifted its focus.