New Govt Servants Must Be Bilingual Within 5 Yrs-Minister
June 13, 2007 at 7:42 pm · Close Watch
Recruits to govt service from July must be competent in Sinhala & Tamil within 5 yrs or face pay increment cuts-Minister Dew Gunasekera-jnw.lk
To read a Information Department statement click here
This is great news. If acted upon, this has the potential to build trust, give people a sense of being included and makes it possible for all people of Lanka to participate in the government system. And if not acted upon, it has the potential to do more damage by eroding even further the trust in statements by government ministers and make people cynical. In my opinion, the 2nd option would be worse than nothing…I would like to know more about this …Who is Dew Gunasekera, is he someone whose word can be trusted to be backed up with action, does he have the support structure around him to be able to do what he proposes, what kind of mechanisims are in place to enforce this proposal to have govt servants be bilingual wihtin 5 years(to make it real rather than just another PR statment for today and forgotten tomorrow). Can you at Jasmine news write a more in depth article on this topic? What do you need to be able to make available the manpower/woman power to do so?
Ops, I was too quick to click the respond button there… just read the press release on: http://www.news.lk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2642&Itemid=44
This gave me some of the information I was looking for. Still think this is a great move and good news (for once!) and am happy to see some sensible action being taken at last… Thank you to whomever is behind this… and I will be watching with eagerness how this proceeds.
I too think its a very good move if implemented properly. I heard from a public servant in Trincomalee that she was now attending language classes, so maybe there is some movement within the system.
If anyone has more information do post here.