Minister of National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages Mano Ganesan the presided over an event at the Department of National Languages to present certificates to those who passed the level one and two language proficiency course for 2015.

Minister Ganesan said that he hopes that all the political leaders in this country; all 225 parliamentarians and the Members of the Local Council will be able to speak in three languages, as the issues they have will decrease.

“For the public to learn a secondary language is a choice, we cannot force them to. If the chance to learn the language is provided then there is no issue in learning it according to the law and according to policies”, said Ganesan.

He went on to note, Sinhala and Tamil languages are both national languages and that English is a global language. He stated that back then the Sinhala and Tamil languages were made the national languages instead of English.

“..but if we did carry out the English language back then as well, the GDP of our country could have increased. We would have even surpassed Malaysia or even Singapore by now. But we did not do that. We are working intensively on language policies. We are dedicated to this so do help us…”, he added.

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