By Saman Indrajith
Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapkshe told Parliament yesterday that, as per the existing laws, English is the medium of examinations in the Sri Lanka Law College.
The Minister said that it had been made mandatory for them to sit the examination only in the English medium from this year, as per the provisions of the Gazette Extraordinary No.2208/13 of December 30, 2020.
Dr Rajapakshe said so while responding to a question by SJB Ratnapura District MP, Hesha Withanage, who called on him to permit the Law College students to answer examinations in Sinhala or Tamil.
Minister Rajapakshe said that the need for teaching law subjects in the English medium, had been stressed by many legal experts, and scholars. There are some students who have been demanding that they be permited to sit the examinations in either Sinhala or Tamil. I have taken up this issue with the Chief Justice, who is also the Chairman of the Incorporated Council of Legal Education, under which the Sri Lanka Law College functions. The Chief Justice, thereafter, referred the issue to the Council’s Board of Studies, and the Board has decided that the Law College should conduct its examinations only in the English medium, and that should not be changed. I will take up this matter with the Chief Justice, again” the Minister said.
Chief Opposition Whip Kandy District MP, Lakshman Kiriella, said that the issue of changing the medium of instruction had been made by politicians and now there was a crisis. “The medium of instruction had been English until a decision made by a former government to allow students to sit examinations in Sinhala or Tamil. Then when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its zenith, and Parliament was not functioning, the government issued a gazette making it mandatory for the students to answer examinations in the English language. I received more than 15 telephone calls this morning from students asking me to speak on their behalf. It is unfair to make children pay for the follies of the government. Who destroyed this country’s education system by changing the medium of instruction in schools from English to vernacular languages,” Kiriella said.
Foreign Minister Ali Sabry PC said that at the Law College entrance examination candidates were given a language paper which they could answer in the medium of their choice – it could be English, Tamil or Sinhala. “However, after they enter the Law College, the students are expected to study in the English medium. Once the candidates become students, it is the responsibility of the College to turn them into competent lawyers. The students have to pass out of the College and compete. That they cannot do without ability to work in the English language. If we allow mother tongue as the examination medium, that would produce two types of lawyers – those who can speak and work in the English language and those who cannot work in the English medium. This would allow the children coming from villages to learn and master the English language and go out of the College with proficiency in the English language, in addition to their legal skills. When we tried to do this, the Opposition always disrupted it for political gain. In the medical profession, engineering profession, IT profession and Management the medium of examination is only English. Children would not learn English until we make it mandatory for the examinations. There are some who want to limit the English language proficiency only to the rich and upper class so that they could remain in the top. This is wrong. It has to be changed,” Minister Sabry said.
He said that politicians sent their children abroad to get LLB qualifications from foreign universities and let the local children study in their mother tongue at the Law College so that the former would always have an advantage over the latter.