Sri Lanka: Languages Commission lauds President

[Harold F. Schiffman]

 Languages Commission lauds President

COLOMBO: Official Languages Commission Chairman Raja Collure commended the
steps by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to enforce the provisions of 13th
Amendment to the Constitution to accommodate the commissions
recommendations in respect of the New recruits to the public service.
Collure in a letter to the President has underlined the validity of
requiring competence in the second official language and the provision of
some attractive incentives for persons already in public service to induce
them to acquire proficiency in the Second official language either Sinhala
or Tamil.

The letter: Let me at the outset convey to you the gratitude of the
chairman and members of the Official Languages Commission for having
afforded us this opportunity of presenting its Memorandum of
Recommendations - 2006.

Among the functions of the Official Languages Commission are that of
making recommendations in respect of the implementation of the Official
Languages Policy as well as monitoring implementation, awareness, creation
and action on complaints against violations of Language Rights. We are
pleased to state that during last year the Commissions activities reached
the peak in its entire history.

In your Thaipongal message of January 14th, 2006 among other things you
stated that the recommendations of the Commission will be implemented.

We are extremely pleased that the Government has begun the implementation
of those recommendations. We are also grateful to Minister D. E. W.
Gunasekara for his commitment in taking necessary steps to give effect to
your statement.

During the year 2006, the Government took certain steps to enforce the
provisions of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution exceeding any
previous Government.

Firstly in accordance with our recommendations, new recruits to the public
service are now required to have competence in the second official
language. (Second Official Languages means Tamil Language for those
competent in Sinhala Language and Sinhala Language for those competent in
the Tamil Language).

The other is provision of some attractive incentives for persons already
in public service to induce them to acquire proficiency in the second
official language.

We submit that these two steps taken by your Government are of a decisive
nature. In fact those steps should have been taken soon after the adoption
of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Had it been done at that time
there would not have remained a language problem at present.

The recommendations of 2006 in our belief will help solve certain problems
relating to language which will subsist until the present steps taken by
your Government achieves the end results.

The present recommendations envisage the creation of an institution for
providing translations and interpretation on self-employment basis between
Sinhala-Tamil. Tamil-Sinhala, Sinhala-English, English-Sinhala,
Tamil-English and English-Tamil.

As you may be aware, there is a dire shortage of competent translators and
interpreters in these languages.

As such there is need to obtain the maximum service of competent
translators and interpreters serving in different institutions and
elsewhere.

The services of those translators and interpreters who are registered with
the proposed institution could be obtained by way of assignments made on
the basis of certain rates of payment.

While Government institutions could obtain the services for translations
through electronic means, the assignments to those registered with the
institution could also be made in a similar manner.

The supervision of translations will be the responsibility of the few
persons permanently employed. Upon the establishment of this institution,
it will not be necessary for each and every Government institution to have
its own translators and interpreters. Those who are presently in the
Translators Service could also be absorbed into this institution.

These recommendations are based on the model of the Translations Bureau
which functions in Canada where the federal administration is bi-lingual.

A delegation of the Official Languages Commission which visited Canada on
a study tour in 2005 studied how that institution functions.

The proposed institution could, in addition, undertake the compilation of
glossaries and updating them as does the Translations Bureau in Canada.

It is recommended that until such time that the proposed institution is to
set up its work cold be commenced as a Unit of the Department of Official
Languages which is already engaged in translation work and has some
resources for such work.

It would take some time for the fruition of the results of the two steps
taken by your government mentioned earlier.

To meet the language problems that would subsist in the interim period and
to expedite the use of both Sinhala and Tamil Languages in the
administration, we believe that our recommendations of 2005 need be
implemented.

Among them the following should obtain priority to recruit to the public
service a sufficient number of persons competent in the Tamil Language, to
take expeditious measures to train translators and interpreters through
the University system which has the necessary human resources and
infrastructural facilities for such training, to convert Official
Languages Department which has already developed into an institution to
train public servants in the two Official Languages and the Link Language
to an independent institute capable of carrying out its functions more
efficiently, to make Sinhala and Tamil Languages compulsory subjects in
the Secondary Schools upto the General Certificate of Education (Ordinary
Level).

We highly appreciate the steps taken by the Government to implement the
Official Languages Policy.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/04/26/news30.asp

***********************************************************************************

N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.

***********************************************************************************