2009 - Year of ICT and English

Daily Mirror

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has declared 2009 as the year of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and English.
This declaration is not a mere verbal decoration. It is comparable to the green light for a great 365-day voyage in which every citizen of the country is a member of the crew of the ship that is on sail to the destination of a new world of equal and optimum life style and opportunity for all Sri Lankans. Just as much deliberation and minute planning goes into the building of the ship that will take the people on the journey towards the destination, long and short term plans have been in place for this declaration. A cabinet sub-committee on Human Resources Development had recommended it. The organisational structures which were involved with the subject got revamped in advance. The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) the single apex body involved in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy, direction and development for the nation was given a new lease of life. The amending Act No. 33 of 2008 passed in Parliament unanimously rendered ICTA set up in July 2003 by Act No. 27 of 2003 more implementation-friendly. The amending Act also made ICTA’s life span open-ended and not limited just for five years as was the case earlier.

In a further move of emphasizing the importance of the ICT and English language year, two task forces were also set up for carrying out the special tasks in the field of ICT and English language in view of the ICT and English Language Year. The relevant task forces have been doing immense work though in relative silence.

While ICTA has by now made great strides in promoting ICT, it hopes to intensify its efforts even further in the ICT year.

In view of the declaration of 2009 as the year of ICT, the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has taken steps to implement an extensive national programme to disseminate among the people awareness about ICT.

These awareness campaigns will be organised in such a way that it will become clear to the people how the benefits of information technology could be used to make their lives more comfortable.

ICTA has planned to launch these campaigns through newspapers, radio and television throughout the whole year. These will be simple and attractive to the target group, which is the general public.

The declaration of 2009 as the year of ICT and English is a great milestone in the Government’s long term plan to make people’s lives more comfortable by the use of ICT. By proper ICT development it is hoped that the Government will be able to earn revenue of two billion US dollars by 2012.

It is further hoped that job opportunities for over 100,000 youths will be made available in the information and communication sector as a result of development in the ICT sector.

Science and Technology Minister Tissa Vitharana in connection with presentation of the ICT Amendment bill in September 2008 said that, “the ICT Agency has laid a platform on which we can develop ICT and I am happy to mention here that His Excellency the President has declared the year 2009 as the ICT Year and the platform is ready for take off in this sector so that our economy can profit by a large number of jobs being created”.

ICT comes under eSri Lanka. The eSri Lanka initiative uses ICT to develop the economy of Sri Lanka, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of the people. It includes an integrated strategy that encompasses building information infrastructure, creating an enabling environment, developing ICT human resources, modernising the Government and leveraging ICT for economic and social development. Thus eSri Lanka envisions harnessing of ICT as a lever for economic and social advancement by taking the dividends of ICT to every village, citizen and business and re-engineering the way the Government thinks and works.

Mechanism to improve English, IT teaching methods

Dharma Sri ABEYRATNE

Under the national drive of the Presidential Task Force which was established to improve the standard of English and Information Technology of our younger generation, the Education Department together with the Presidential Task Force will launch a mechanism to improve the teaching methods of English and Information Technology at grassroots level based on the methods adopted in India.

Accordingly, 40 teachers who had followed the `Communicative English' scholarship program at the English and Foreign Language University in Hyderabad will be utilized to train other English teachers who are serving at Government schools. The 40 teachers will function as English Language Master Trainers.

"The Education Ministry will release these 40 teachers from school activities to enable them train the other teachers. They will be attached to the Teacher Centres," Advisor to the President, and Project Leader, Information Technology and Communication of the Presidential Task Force, Sunimal Fernando said. Since India is well advanced in the teaching of communicative English and Information Technology sectors, the task force has obtained the assistance of India to improve our teaching methods.

This would help Sri Lankan youths which are lagging behind in the job market as a result of not having a proper knowledge of communicative English. Sri Lanka is grateful to India for training 40 of our teachers in Communicative English and Information Technology.

Course content and course materials are being prepaired by the Indian trained teachers. Finally, the new method goes to the schoolchildren who are badly in need of communicative English, Fernando added.