In a bid to improve the ICT literacy rate of Sri Lanka to 50% by 2010, the President officially declared the year 2009 as the year of English and IT in a ceremony held last Friday (13). Sri Lanka’s IT literacy rate has been steadily growing from 5% in 2005 to 23% last year.

Explaining that a pro-active and fully dedicated endeavour is necessary by all government ministries and departments 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, President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated, “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.”

The President appointed Infosys Chairman and Father of IT in India, Dr. Narayana Murthy as his special advisor on IT that day. Dr. Murthy was among the dignitaries present on the occasion to mark the declaration of 2009 as the Year of IT and English and he hailed it as a ‘timely and relevant’ step taken by the Sri Lankan Government.

Speaking at the occasion Dr. 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 this official declaration President Rajapaksa also launched the official website of Year of English and IT 2009; www.englishandit.lk while Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) Chairman Prof. P.W. Epasinghe handed over the National ICT Literacy Project Plan by ICTA to the President.

Adding a touch of pride to the occasion was Nimesha Priyadarshani from Ketawela Kanishta Vidyalaya who delivered the Vote of Thanks. She is one among the many students who have improved their talents, thanks to ICTA’s e-Society and Nenasala Projects. Improvement of English and ICT is a pledge embodied in the Mahinda Chinthana policy statement. It is stated that the English and Information Technology literacy of the people of this country, especially, the youth will be raised to a substantially high level.

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

In an important move to promote English and ICT in 2009 in a special way by declaring it the English and ICT Year, two task forces were also set up to carry 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 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.