Accordingly the students in classes above Grade Six would be taught the History in their mother languages since 2009, the Minister said responding to a question raised in Parliament by UNP Colombo District MP Sujeewa Senasinghe.

The Minister said that History subject had been swept out of the school curricula by previous regimes, but President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2006 instructed the Ministry of Education that the subject should be included in the school curricula. Those instructions had been implemented.

Minister Gunawardena said that mother tongue should be the medium of instruction when teaching History discipline as it would help instill pride in the minds of children of their past and heritage. History is directly linked to culture. Therefore using the mother tongue to teach history would help invoke love and pride in the minds of children of their country, nation and religion.

“Countries such as Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Korea uses their mother tongues as the medium of instruction to teach history and religion subjects. Many international education researchers too have pointed out the need of teaching sensitive subjects such as history and religion via the mother language of the students. It is our intention that the medium of instruction in the primary schools should be the mother tongues of the students. The ‘Mahinda Chinthana - A Vision for Future’ too have emphasized the need of safeguarding and promoting mother languages of the students,” the minister said.

“It is the Mahinda Rajapaksa government which took a Cabinet decision that mother tongue, religion and history be made compulsory subjects in all national schools. The UNP governments always wanted to abolish the mother tongue to promote teaching history in English medium,” Minister Gunawardena added. (Special Reporter/HC)