Trilingual policy leads to communal harmony

by M.A. Phakurdeen, Addalaichenai Group Cor

Former Minister and Ambassador to the State of Kuwait A.R. Munsoor stressed the importance of trilingual policy of the Government and appealed to the students of all three communities to follow this policy to understand each other community which would bring about mutual understanding to pave the way for inter-communal harmony.

Former Minister Munsoor was the chief guest at the felicitation ceremony of students of Kalmunai Zone who excelled in Year 5 Scholarship Examination and GCE O/L Examinations held at the Auditorium of Kalmunai Mahmood Balika Ladies College under the chairmanship of the Former principal M.A. Majeed.

The ceremony was organised by the "Movement for Quality Education of Kalmunai" as a boost to the student community of the area. The movement felicitated 211 students from year 5 scholarship Examination and 25 students who obtained all "9A"s in the GCE O/L Examinations. Prof. M.A. Nuhuman participated as guest of honour.

Munsoor recalled the Inconveniences and the difficulties they encountered in pursuance of their education at a time when there were no electricity or tuition classes. Parents were ignorant so that they did not know the value of education. Hence, there was hardly anyone to express their appreciation over their excelling in studies. He still remembered the teacher Maqbool Alim, the father of a well reputed Educationist of the area Prof. M.A. Nuhuman who taught him and tamed him as a disciplined student to bring him to this status and also feted him for coming out with flying colours in his Year 5 Scholarship Examination.

Those days Tamil and Muslim students studied together preserving inter-communal harmony.

The then Education Minister C.W.W. Kannangara who was described as the 'Father of Free Education" has to be remembered by all of us for dawning a revolution in education in the entire Sri Lanka. Now that these facilities are being provided to all schools, but our students are not taking any interests in developing their knowledge. Studying languages has been completely ignored.

Tamil speaking students are not learning Sinhala and similarly Sinhala speaking students are not learning Tamil.

Meanwhile studying English language by both Sinhala and Tamil speaking students has been completely ignored.

This trend should be changed and we all must study all three languages to understand each other. Learning English should be given pride of place in the curricular activities of all the schools. long with that Tamil speaking students should study Sinhala and Sinhala speaking students should learn Tamil. If we are conversant in all three languages we would be a perfect citizen of Sri Lanka.

This is the concept of our President Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa. His initiatives to popularize Tri-lingual policy stresses the same and we all must take all concrete steps to implement same among us, he said.

The students who excelled in Year 5 Examinations and GCE (O/L) were given English Tamil Dictionaries by the chief guest, former Minister A.R. Munsoor. These Dictionaries were donated by chief guest Munsoor's daughter Dr. Jumna Haroon who is now working in a hospital in United Kingdom.