Follow-up on Sri Lanka article sent earlier today

[Harold Schiffman]

In the previous article on Sri Lanka, it stated that Tamil has been an
official language of Sri Lanka
since 1988, but an article distributed a few years back stated the case
differently, i.e. 1978.  I include that
(from our archives) herewith.



 From the *Sunday Observer* (Sri Lanka)

Special officers to implement Language Policy
by Don Asoka Wijewardena

Obstacles have arisen in implementing the Official Language Policy (OLP) on
a district basis. The main problems are the *dearth of qualified staff *and
lack of *institutional *machinery, said Official Languages Commission
Chairman Raja Collure at a workshop on "implementation of the Official
Languages Policy in local government authorities in the Gampaha District
held at Golden Star Hotel, Negombo on September 26.

Collure said that the recent survey conducted by the Official Languages
Commission had revealed that a large number of *vacancies in the post of
Tamil typists and translators* in several government institutions had not
been filled so far.

He also said that in accordance with the provisions of the 13th and 16th
amendments to the Constitution of 1978 Sinhala and Tamil were the *official
languages* and English was the *link* language.

When asked about the implementation of official languages policy in local
government authorities, Collure said that the Government had decided that
Secretaries of every Ministry, Heads of Departments, Chief Secretaries of
Provincial Councils, Heads of Government Corporations and Statutory Bodies
would be designated as Chief Official Languages Implementation
Officers *(COLIO)
*responsible for the due implementation of the Official Languages Policy
while Senior Assistant Secretaries (Administration) of every Ministry and
Deputies (Administration) in every Department, Local Body, Provincial
Council, Government Corporation and Statutory Body would also be designated
as official languages implementation officer sin their central and
divisional offices.

http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2005/10/02/new25.html


Hal Schiffman
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone: (215) 898-7475
Fax: (215) 573-2138

Email: haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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