In The Island on January 20, Tillakaratne Lokubanda in his article “National schools, provincial schools, and international schools: A state-consented neo-caste system” wrote “After the 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike’s ‘Sinhala Only’ debacle, it took decades for the English language to become a factor in our children’s education ….”

In 1943, the State Council Committee on Education, headed by C W W Kannangara, made the following epoch-making recommendations, in the assembly of the State Council when they were originally presented.       Education should be free from Kindergarten to the University.    The mother tongue should be used as the medium of instruction in the Primary Schools.

English should be taught in all schools from the Standard Three.

Up to now, no government including SWRD’s went against those recommendations and, at least now we should stop bashing of SWRD and his ‘Sinhala Only’ (later changed) for poor standard of English language in the country.

Further, what SWRD did paved the way for generations of ‘non-English background’ children of All Races, even to rise to the top levels of positions in some world organisations, i.e. UN, NASA etc. .

The problem of “poor standard of English language in the country” and solution for it lie somewhere else, and who could not find those still, after so many decades, use SWRD as the scapegoat.

B Perera