Pre-school children to be taught English

Arrangements will be made to teach English to pre-school children for one period a day, Women and Child Affairs State Minister Geetha Kumarasinghe said.

She said that there are 562,000 pre-school children in Sri Lanka and the Ministry is responsible for all these children.

“As I proposed, arrangements are being made to teach pre-school children English for one period a day,” she added.

The State Minister expressed these views at a function of the World Bank aided Early Childhood Development Project held at the Ministry. She further said that it has been arranged to start teaching English from Grade One in the future.

“We have trained 21,000 pre-school teachers in the English language. At present, a large number of pre-school-age children are suffering from nutritional deficiency. We have started a programme to provide breakfast for those children. The future generation of our country exists with early childhood development. It needs well-trained and knowledgeable teachers to teach young children. The Government has spent a lot of money on training for pre-school teachers,” the State Minister said.