Grade One students of all Government schools countrywide are to be equipped with a knowledge of English based on practical activities from early next year.
The knowledge of the English language is essential for the students to go ahead with technology in the future and this novel program to equip Grade One students with the skills of learning English based on practical activities would be launched from the first term of next year in March as per the instructions of Education Minister Dr. Susil Premajayantha.
About 12,000 school teachers of Grade One classes would be trained and 450 instructors have already been trained towards this end. These instructors were given a proper residential training for three weeks on how English has to be taught for Grade One class- teachers, Minister Premajayantha told the Sunday Observer.
He said Rs. 250 million would be allocated next year for this project to be implemented at Government schools countrywide.
As per the instructions of Minister Premajayantha, the Education Ministry will launch a program to inculcate the noble ability of maintaining “mindfulness” among the students from next year.
Instructions are now given to school heads and a special committee comprising representatives of all faiths has been appointed to discuss on how this program will be implemented successfully irrespective of differences on religious and ethnic influences.
As a pilot project, this program is implemented at the outset and its fruitfulness would be tested prior to the implementation among students, Dr. Premajayantha said.
The architect of this program on “Mindfulness” is Ven. Uda Eeriyagama Dhammajeewa Thera and he has proved positive results of this for five years in Sri Lanka by implementing training programs on “Mindfulness” for a selected group of the Dhamma school students.
Minister Premajayantha intends to carry out this program in schools continuously at national level to maintain a well- balanced and positive mentality among the student population in Sri Lanka.