{"id":111215,"date":"2021-01-31T17:29:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T00:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111215"},"modified":"2021-01-31T17:29:24","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T00:29:24","slug":"council-of-legal-education-a-black-white-fortress-embraces-the-english-panacea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/01\/31\/council-of-legal-education-a-black-white-fortress-embraces-the-english-panacea\/","title":{"rendered":"Council of legal education, a black-white fortress, embraces the English panacea"},"content":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

At a time when the word LAW\nhas become a \u2018dirty\u2019 word, because of the problems created by lawyers, Bar\nAssociation, AG\u2019s Dept., judges, some CJs, behavior of some courts, Ranjan\nRamanayaka\u2019s tapes, and how the yahapalana parliament cheated supreme court in\npassing laws, the black-white-filled legal education council found a panacea to\nall these ills: GO BACK TO ENGLISH MEDIUM QUICKLY WITHIN 3 YEARS between\n2022-24 (Government Gazette 30\/12\/2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consider this a\nsickening decision; one more example of Sinhale (Ceylon) going down the drain.\nThis council of legal education is part of the Evil Triangle (politician-officer-NGO\/citizen),\ndestroying the country and the nation. I pointed out cussedness of this English\nfever, in two essays written in 2001 and 2008 respectively, both printed in the\nIsland newspaper. How timely they are now in 2021! The 2008 essay, a response\nto a Chief Justice then, is copied below. The 2001 essay was an educational\ntask given to a promoter of the subject of superiority of the English language\nas a vehicle of socio-economic progress. \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judicial branch of\ngovernance must concentrate on how to get rid of the White man\u2019s law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

===============================<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Island, 2008\/03\/19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empowering law students with an English language tool<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Courts of law and\nsocial engineering<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comments made recently by the Chief\nJustice of Sri Lanka about teaching English to law students (Daily Mirror,\nMarch 12, 2008), prompted me to read again an essay that I wrote seven years\nago titled, “Gurulugomi to the Rescue: re-Enthronement of the English\nLanguage” (Island, April 13, 2001). It also reminded me what one of my\nwife\u2019s relatives, a self-made goda perakadoruwa<\/em> by vocation, told me\nsome time back. He said, “Lawyers and judges now-a-days cannot speak in\nEnglish,” and my quick reply was, “do you think in Japan, Germany,\nRussia, Cuba, or Israel lawyers work in English?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A working knowledge of any language\nis useful to anybody, anywhere. I often wonder why we do not consider learning\nEnglish the same way we try to learn how to ride a bicycle. When the time\ncomes, we do not give it up until we get the balance and are able to take that\nfirst magic ride to freedom. Learning a language is like learning how to type,\nhow to swim and how to use a computer and the Internet. A language is a window\nto see the cultural world of that language. Very few people but learn or study\na language for the sake of learning. They are driven by an immediate benefit\nthat can be derived by knowing it. For example, in Texas, USA learning Spanish\nis considered an advantage in getting a job or living in harmony with Mexican\nimmigrants. Tamils migrated to other countries in the world learned the\nlanguages of those countries despite the “mental block” they had in\nattaining a working knowledge in Sinhala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working knowledge versus re-enthronement of English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Roman-Dutch law is the common\nlaw in Sri Lanka, but the Anglo-American jurisprudence has been the basis of\nmost of Sri Lankan laws. Therefore, there is no question that a law student in\nSri Lanka should be able to read law books available in English to become a\nmore effective lawyer. I can remember when I was a law student, I obtained\nbooks from three other countries. The retired law college principal Dr. Joe\nSilva studied law with me. The “Flat world” is at least for now a\n“flat English world.” The World Trade Organization (WTO) does its\nbusiness in English. But in USA the middle-class “soccer-mothers”\nforce their children to learn Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Hindi.\nGerman and French classes are no longer in demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, an ability to speak English\nis not a short cut to Nirvana. If so those countries where English is the\nmother tongue should not have poverty, unemployment or high school kids taking\nguns to schools! A genuine desire to empower law students can however end up as\nan unintended legal impact of restricting legal education to a privileged\nsocial class. The efficacy of law is a fascinating field of study in this\nregard. Those who routinely promote English ignore two important concepts\u2014\nproficiency in a second language and barriers to learning English in public\nschools. In a former English colony promoting the first concept often becomes a\nvictim of the second. Proficiency in English is prevented by socio-economic\nreasons. I know a monk with a first class honours degree in Buddhism, who went\nto Japan and won prices in debates conducted in Japanese. He is weak in English\ndespite doctoral work in Japanese. Learning Sanskrit is ten times harder than\nlearning English or French. But when I asked him about his English\n“problem” he said he could not learn English in Sri Lanka because\nothers laughed at him whenever he made a mistake. If he tried to learn German\nand made mistakes nobody in Sri Lanka would have laughed at him. This is\nbecause English has been a weapon of class-privilege in Ceylon\/Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord Macaulay\u2019s grandchildren<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because access to learning English\nis not available to common people and poor children, any qualifying requirement\nof English will prevent them entering law college or universities. This will\nthen take the clock back to pre-1956 era. The solution should be to teach\nEnglish as a second language effectively at public schools and then teach\nEnglish as a required subject at higher educational institutions. Otherwise, in\ngeneral, those who speak or write about this subject in former British colonies\nunknowingly commit the same sin, a superiority complex, committed by Lord\nMacaulay in 1835\u2014who could deny that a single shelf of a good European\nlibrary was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia<\/em>,” Macaulay:\nThe Shaping of the Historian by John Clive, Random House, 1973, p.372. It could\ngive the appearance that the new masters to whom the white masters transferred\nthe ruling power have volunteered themselves to take the “White Man\u2019s\nburden” upon their shoulders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law College was for the rich and the powerful<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of the Law College this\nis even more relevant because it was a trade school for the rich and the\npowerful to serve their sons and daughters who could not enter the university\nor who could not go abroad to study. The change of medium of instruction\naltered this historical function. This is why the words “senseless and\nfoolish” need some sort of judicial re-adjustment. If the judicial branch\nof a country is limited to a particular elitist class of people, the general\ncomplaint against the law is nothing but a weapon in the hands of the ruling\nelites (the social norms favourable and acceptable to the ruling class becomes\nlaws) ends up in double jeopardy attracting extra-judicial remedies by way of\nrebellion or sabotage (example: JVP 1971, 1988-9). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of the mother tongue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why students should learn in their\nmother tongues and receive a working knowledge in a foreign language is not\njust a socio-political issue. The colonial education policy of the British\nEmpire was aimed at killing the mother tongues of the natives, just like the\ncolonial economic policy was designed to drain the resources of the colony to\nLondon or Liverpool. In Ceylon, Colombo harbour became the outward mouth of the\ndrain. In India it was Bombay, Calcutta, Karachchi and Madras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a detailed history of the\ncolonial education policy, the best source is chapter 12 “Indian\nEducation: The Minute” of Clive\u2019s book on Macaulay. There were two\nopposing views. “Engrafting” Western knowledge upon Indian cultural\ntraditions by means of Sanskrit and Arabic and “downward filtration,”\nthe creation of an educated elite who would themselves become teachers to other\ngreat mass of poor Indian people. The latter policy had an evangelical and\nutilitarian bias. So Macaulay said, “we must at present do our best to\nform a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we\ngovern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste,\nin opinions, in morals, and in intellect<\/em>.” Who could deny that NM,\nLeslie, Colvin, Lalith, Gamini, JRJ, Dudley, Sir John, Sir Oliver, Sir Solomon\nDias, DS Senanayake, Ranil, Neelan-GL, CBK and so many past native Chief\nJustices did not qualify as grandchildren of Macaulay? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its top priority was making\nprofits, the colonial government left education in the hands of religious and\nprivate organizations. As summed up by Nehru, colonial masters supported a\npolicy of “education for clerks.” In 1851, Radha Kanta Dev, a\nprogressive Calcutta merchant warned against a system, whereby, “..with\na smattering knowledge of English, youths are weaned from the plough, the axe\nand the loom, to render them ambitious only for the clerkships for which hosts\nwould besiege the government and mercantile offices<\/em>\u2026” Dev favoured\nagricultural and industrial schools, where skills could be taught. For him the\nprerequisite for these was a solid vernacular education. Lord Curzon who\ndivided Bengal into two in 1905, made the same point half a century later\n(Clive, p. 416). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gandhi once said, “It was\nnothing less than scandalous that people should devote the best years of their\nlives to mastering a foreign tongue<\/em>.” The Buddha said twenty-five\nhundred years ago that one\u2019s mother tongue was the most appropriate medium of\neducation. He used Magadhi (Pali), the people\u2019s mother tongue and not Sanskrit\n(the Brahmin masters\u2019 language). Sir D. B. Jayatilaka, who opposed the\nintroduction of universal suffrage, was convinced that originality of thought\nwas inextricably bound with one\u2019s own mother tongue. He asked, “We have\nhad English education in this country over a century\u2026but has anyone left a\nsingle book in English verse or prose which<\/em> will survive a generation?<\/em>”\n(Legislative Council Debates, 1928:368). As cited in Professor K. N. O.\nDharmadasa\u2019s book, Language, Religion and Ethnic Assertiveness (1992, p. 215),\nAnanda Coomaraswamy, who was fluent in ten languages, went even further to\nendorse strongly, the link between one\u2019s creative and intellectual development\nand his\/her mother tongue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The era of teaching Sinhala in English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of dedicated Sri Lankans\nfought to open the doors of the university to the common people of Sri Lanka.\nWhen the plug was removed, big-fat-rich kids from Colombo and other big cities\nhad no chance. In the early days university admission decisions were made after\na personal interview. And at the interview, as reported by Felix Dias B, Sir\nIvor asked him, “Since your father is a judge of the Supreme Court are\nyou also planning to be a judge of the Supreme Court?<\/em>” to which FDB\nreplied, “No, I want to be the vice chancellor of the university so\nthat I could select students.<\/em>” They were just scratching each other\u2019s\nbacks! While Royal, St. Thomas\u2019 and even the St Joseph\u2019s dropped out of the\nscene, village students with 8 distinctions at G.C.E. (O.L) flooded the\nuniversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What had happened to the Philippine\nIslands, Africa or to some South American cultures or more recently to South\nKorea did not happen in Sri Lanka, because of life-sacrificing acts of Walane\n(Panadura) Siddharta (1811-68), whose wisdom resulted in the establishment of\nVidyodaya (1873) and Vidyalankara (1875) Pirivenas, Migettuwatte Gunananda\n(1823-90), Hikkaduwe Sumangala (1827-1911), Colonel Olcott (the first white\nBuddhist) and many others. It is true that some children of school principals,\npostmasters and village landowners had an opportunity to enter the University\nof Ceylon. But the Kannangara Free Education Reforms did not reach the masses\nuntil the people\u2019s revolution in 1956 and the decision to teach in Sinhala and\nTamil in the university. In the 1960s, to supplement the university bursary\nsystem, Dr. N. M. Perera, added a university students\u2019 bank loan scheme through\nthe People\u2019s Bank. But it was not an easy victory. We all know what Sir\nNicholas, the dean of medical faculty told F. R. Jayasooriya when the former\nwas approached to teach medicine in Sinhala, “first go and teach your\nSinhala in Sinhala and then come to me<\/em>.” In this effort FR had the\nbacking of I. D. S. Weerawardena, who pioneered teaching political science in Sinhala,\nwith the support of his English wife, until his untimely death by a\nmisdiagnosis of chickenpox. Tamil professors did not join the swabhasha\nmovement because rich Tamils went to the Madras University for higher\neducation. The language of medicine in Ceylon was class privilege and money.\nPrivate medical schools and private universities are not bad ideas per se<\/em>\nif we know the real reason behind them. People who get rich by just means\ntaking risks must be allowed to enjoy their wealth. Is this against Buddhism? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colonialism and English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our admiration of the West and the\nEnglish language need not become an obsession. Blind faith in everything\nWestern and American could become a mental sickness. For example, why are\npeople from Colombo embrace things coming from America, which even the\nAmericans in America, are rejecting? A good example is the McDonald hamburgers\nnotorious as an unhealthy fast food (The McDonaldization of Society, George\nRitzer, 1993). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Buddhist Jataka story tells us not\nto take the raft on to our shoulders after we used it to cross the river.\nEnglish is only a raft and it need not be a Kaduwa<\/em>. English is a very\neconomical language. Because it is so widespread proficiency in English is a\npassport to see the world. It has a rich vocabulary, flexible and has\nrelatively simple spelling and pronunciation. If a standard western typewriter\nkeyboard were to expand to take in every Chinese ideagraph it would have to be\nabout 15 feet long and 5 feet wide (The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got\nThat Way, Bill Bryson, 1990, p. 118). There is no reason to love English, and\nthere is no reason to hate it. Politicians and their henchmen-officers are\nplaying the same old game when they say that Sri Lanka is in a mess because\nEnglish was ignored. It is better if the judiciary does not get involved in\nsuch issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barriers to English Proficiency <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All what a Sri Lankan child needs is\none class period of quality English every school day from grades 2-10. As Dr.\nS. Kariyawasam reported (Island, May 4, 2000), of the 40,000 English teachers,\nnearly 19,000 recruited in 1972, came with a credit pass in English at the\nG.C.E. (O.L.). Three decades later are we doing a better job in solving this\nproblem of quantity and quality of English language teachers? How many schools\neven within a 25- mile radius from Colombo could claim that they have enough\nqualified English teachers? Teaching English as a foreign language is not the\nsame as speaking English. The failure of the Education Department in this\nregard has helped tuition masters to make money without paying taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka had a reasonably good\ntextbook translation service in the 1960s and who killed it? There is no single\npath to make children proficient in English. It can be done without killing\ntheir mother tongue. Those days there were night schools attached to temples\nwhere English was taught free. Who killed that concept? Why cannot this method\nbe revived? This is a low cost, village level approach suitable for those who\nare genuinely concerned with helping the masses. We commemorate with gratitude\nwhat the American Olcott did for us in the 1880s. He helped to establish\nschools for the Buddhists at a time the government was not willing to help.\nIronically, those who had the responsibility of continuing Olcott\u2019s mission\nneglected teaching English to Buddhist monks attending the pirivenas. It is\nmuch harder to learn Sanskrit, but student-priests learned Sanskrit and Pali\nand not English. Buddhist priests had to rely on the English knowledge of the\nlay Buddhist leaders. Same thing happened with the Marxists. The leaders spoke\nEnglish but the ordinary members, the labourers and clerks did not know it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Providing a working knowledge of\nEnglish to those who study in their mother tongue should not be a matter of Anto-Jata-Bahi-Jata.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D. At a time when the word LAW has become a \u2018dirty\u2019 word, because of the problems created by lawyers, Bar Association, AG\u2019s Dept., judges, some CJs, behavior of some courts, Ranjan Ramanayaka\u2019s tapes, and how the yahapalana parliament cheated supreme court in passing laws, the black-white-filled legal education council found a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-wijeyawickrema"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}