PRESIDENT RAJAPAKSA SAYS TO SURMOUNT FUTURE CHALLENGES IT IS IMERATIVE NEXT GENERATION SHOULD BE ARMED WITH I.T. AND LANGUAGES
Posted on October 14th, 2009
By Walter Jayawardhana
Speaking at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa President Mahinda Rajapaksa said to surmount future challenges it is necessary to arm the future generation of Sri Lanka with language knowledge and information technology.
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The children should be enthused to learn local and foreign languages as well as information technology ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-, he said.
President Rajapaksa was the chief guest of the 75th year celebration of the premier educational institution of the area in which he honored the past pupils of the college. Among the past pupils who received awards from the President was Rev. Father Alex Dassanayaka who belonged to the first batch of students of the school. Principal, teachers and students of the school felicitated the President by presenting him with an award for the immense service he has rendered to the nation.
Speaking further President Rajapaksa said his aim was to entrust the united country to a group of constructive citizens.
The President said it was not easy to serve oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s motherland since an empty man cannot fulfill that task. Addressing the students the President said during the childhood , for the task, certain qualities should be acquired. They should be ready to accept not only praise but abuse as well. They should be prepared to go behind bars and bear it.
Quoting the bible the President said blessed are the virtuous for the door of heaven will be open to them.
They aspire to mould good citizens in a unified country to hand over this land to them. Fr. Joseph Vaz said in his death bed that one cannot achieve in death bed what was not achieved in his lifetime. Childhood should be confined to oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s education, sports and health. Buddhism says that delay causes regret. The children should study without delay to be committed to serve the mother country after leaving school.
Bishop of Chilaw Rt. Rev. Dr. Valence Mendis and Ministers Susil Premajayanth and Milroy Fernando were among the other speakers. Parliamentarians Dayasritha Tissera, Neomal Perera and Priyankara Jayaratna, North Western Chief Minister Athula Wijesinghe and School Principal Rev. Fr. Sylvester Jayakody were present.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Dear Walter, I love to visit Lanka Web and know very well that you have unlimited access to Daily News to publish this kind of news. I used Daily News online version until they started supporting English and IT. I wrote an email to the editor and stopped visiting that criminal website. In fact, I got so tired of a print industry man firing one article after the other promoting multi-lingual skills, who also had the contract to print books for schools. For some unknown reason, I came across a news item after a few days saying that the secretary to that part of a ministry responsible for English and IT was replaced. Anyway, is this article about English and IT or World Languages and IT?
I can understand the importance of learning languages (and also religions) for Sri Lankan politicians as they can say one thing in the south, another in the north, one for the west (homeland), one for the east, one for the Christians, one for the Muslims, one for the Buddhists and sadly no need to tell anything to Sinhala people. So even Sinhala people do not have to learn their language.
My trouble is how on earth we could do better than what we are by learning English. We had our English masters running our country for 150 years and then we have the local scum doing their bidding to this day. So what else will happen by continuing with it except going behind our masters seeking redemption? By the way, how many of us can claim that we know English, and challenge English gentlemen who truly represent that language that we are as good as or better than them?
What is wrong with IT? What the hell were we doing all these years to find this magic wand to discover our gold mines? Alas, here we are talking about the two-digit version developed by the morons with the support of our migrants, the mini-version created copying the knowledge behind the decimal (ten-digit) system, which is our own ancient creation. So we must go back to year two after completing year ten. Is this enough? No, we must see the magic of computer world, the magnetic extended version of the “Thoran” technology created by our ordinary people to show Buddha in colours during Vesak that had the hard disk turning lights on and off according to desired patterns. There is one more item missing to develop our country. Unless we are working with English gentlemen just like all other unworthy nations to open our market for their garbage, we must start producing stone tools for the export market.
If my comments bewildered someone, let me suggest that we have people among us who can do not only the application of ten-digit version, but to numbers beyond our count, that are more powerful than functioning of the human brains. It is just one of many other aspects of knowledge we could use to develop our country. So, where do we have our leaders, in front of us or in the Stone Age?
Are we talking of turning the whole population to public servants or politicians? We already have millions doing this stuff living off by consuming food manufactured by the real intellectuals who do the most important thing. When you say “The President said it was not easy to serve one’s motherland since an empty man cannot fulfil that task” I fully agree. When they started preaching English and IT to serve our country, I realised that and lost my faith that I inherited by birth. By the way, I heard that we have 38 advisors to the current president. Can you tell me whether it should be read as “We have 39 presidents or as 38 presidents and one announcer? I wish you could tell me the native language, ethnic identity and religion of all our politicians of every persuasion because none seems to have any claim to any one known to me.