The Education Ministry will offer an incentive for teachers gaining proficiency in English in an effort to improve the English language proficiency of teachers in the government school system and to harness that proficiency to the teaching and learning process. The English language proficiency of schoolteachers is identified through an online English proficiency testing mechanism implemented by the Education Ministry with the assistance of the Norwich Institute of Language Education (NILE), UK. The English proficiency evaluation programme is being currently carried out countrywide covering all the nine provinces.
At the initial stage it will evaluate the proficiency of 500 teachers countrywide.
Based on the result of the online evaluation of this pilot sample of 500 teachers, a minimum proficiency level for English language will be formulated.
The teachers, who exceed the minimum proficiency level of English will be entitled to receive an incentive, Education Ministry sources said.
“This online English language proficiency aims to develop the English language proficiency of teachers further and to utilize that proficiency in the teaching and learning process,” Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam told the Daily News.
“Teachers will have a flair for and will be motivated to improve their knowledge of English,”he said.