Pro-active and fully dedicated endeavour must be made by all Government Ministries, Departments and all concerned to bring English and ICT from the state of being the prerogative of the elite to the level of a common facility shared by all Sri Lankans from ‘now’ onwards. President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated so while participating at a function for officially declaring 2009 as the Year of English and ICT held at the President’s Secretariat.

Speaking further on the occasion the President called for total commitment to make Sri Lanka reach the 50 per cent mark in national ICT literacy by 2010. “At this juncture when we have witnessed the restoration of real independence and are beginning to experience total sovereignty through the length and breadth of Sri Lanka, we should solve all our problems and move towards the country’s development as a nation without any division on the basis of race, language, religion or any such other differences.

Gracing this event in Colomo besides other dignitaries was Dr. N. R. Narayana Murthy , Father of IT in India, Chairman and Mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited and famous icon of entrepreneurship in modern India. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Murthy corroborated the President’s admonition and added that any nation can come up to highest standards of development and national unity if there was sufficiently strong will and determination of the people concerned to achieve the desired target.

Marking the this official declaration President Mahinda Rajapaksa also launched the official website of Year of English & IT 2009. www.englishandit.lk while Prof.P. W. Epasinghe Chairman, ICTA handed over the National ICT Literacy Project Plan by ICTA to the President.

A special highlight that made everyone highly pleased was the vote of thanks delivered by Nimesha Priyadarshani From Ketawela Kanishta Vidyalaya one of the students who had improved her talents, thanks to ICTA’s e-Society & Nenasala Projects.

Ministers, Dr.Sarath Amunugama, Prof.Tissa Vitharana, Secretary to the President Mr.Lalith Weeratunga,Indian High Commissioner HE Alok Prasad also participated in the occasion.

Improvement of English and ICT is a pledge embodied in the Mahinda Chintana policy statement. It is stated there that the English and information technology literacy of the people of this country, especially, the youth will be raised to a substantially high level.

In an important move to promote English and ICT in 2009 in a special way as the English and ICT Year, two task forces were also set up for carrying out the special tasks in the field of English and ICT. The relevant task forces have been doing immense work though in relative silence. The presidential task force for the year of English and ICT is headed by Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama and the English segment is coordinated by Mr. Sunimal Fernando, Advisor to the President. There are other ICT related organisations which are working with the task forces, and in addition they have their own activities designed to be implemented aligned to the year of English and ICT.

The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka as the apex body of the ICT in Sri Lanka assists the task forces in implementing their tasks and apart from that there will be several ICT activities planned by ICTA. There will be one major activity every month organised by ICTA during the year of ICT.

The key focus of the English and ICT year is to make the general public have the knowledge of English so that, inter alia, they can access world knowledge and be aware of the opportunities and the capabilities of the Information and Communication Technology sector as well as increasing their English and ICT literacy rate and ultimately putting in place a plan to ensure that Sri Lanka has sufficient English learning and ICT resources to take the country to the next level in English and ICT led development. Creating ICT awareness in the country is a lengthy exercise. The whole generation needs to be educated about the importance of learning information and communication technology and following ICT as a career. The benefits and effectiveness of ICT and the demand for the IT professional are still not fully apparent to the general public. Lots of parents encourage their children to become doctors, engineers, lawyers etc, but very few people encourage them to become IT professionals. The reason behind this is the lack of knowledge of the opportunities of ICT and the new avenues available for the younger generation to build up their careers. Information and communication technology has become the pathway of most of the advancements in other professions as well. In that sense the younger generation can get involved in most of the innovative technology and revenue generation for the country which will in turn help to boost the economy of the country.

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