New regulations for International schools

Teaching Ceylon History, mother-tongue and Religion compulsory from 2014 in International schools
- Minister Bandula

     The government has decided to include subjects of Ceylon History, mother-tongue and Religion as compulsory subjects in International schools.      

     Minister of Education, Mr. Bandula Gunawardhana yesterday mentioned that the cabinet proposal has been prepared and that it would be approved by the Minister concerned in the recent future and that the new regulations will be put into effect from January next year. 

    For quite some time scholars have pointed out that students of most International schools are taught subjects for London exams other than History, the mother tongue and religion and that it results in gaining a knowledge only of Western countries which means that Sri Lanka in the future would produce a generation of people who know nothing of Sri Lanka History.
 
    Further criticism was aimed at the fact that though the mother tongue of the majority is Sinhala and the religion is Buddhism, International schools have considered these subjects as not important and had even forgotten Sinhala because the students are taught in the English medium. Criticism was made to the effect that problems would arise in the future with regard to the existence of the national language.

    By this time there is an equal demand for International schools in urban areas as much as the popular government schools in Sri Lanka. To admit children to certain schools it has been a more competition than in the case of admitting them to government schools. However, middle-class families do not show much of a liking for the teaching tradition of those schools because of this type of problem relating to above-mentioned subjects, discipline and school traditions.

   Though Minister Bandula has taken steps to implement these regulations in International schools, he had on a number of previous occasions stated that it has not been possible to dictate terms to International schools because they have been instituted as BOI projects or as organisations and not as educational institutions.