President Maithripala Sirisena has appointed Prof. S. Sandarasegaram, former dean of the faculty of education, University of Colombo, as chairman of the Official Languages Commission, with immediate effect.
The commission comes under the purview of the National Coexistence, Dialogue and Official Languages Ministry.
The commission is empowered by an Act of Parliament to monitor and supervise the implementation of the official languages provisions of the Constitution. The commission is also empowered to investigate complaints made by the public of any violation of language rights by government institutions.
Since the language problem is one of the main constraints of the national question or the ethnic problem in the country, the commission is instituted to look into the grievances of the people, both Sinhala and Tamil speaking, in regard to the use of their languages by government institutions
Prof. Sandarsegaram has been functioning as a member of the commission for the past two years.
He was a member of the National Education Commission, expert committee of the Human Rights Commission, council of the National Institute of Education and faculty board of the Faculty of Education, University of Colombo
Prof. Sandarasegaram has authored 30 books in English and Tamil on various themes pertaining to education and his magnum opus was the “History of Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka.” He was also a consultant for the Asian Development Bank which implemented the ‘Education for Knowledge Society’ project.
Prof. Sandarasegaram is from Badulla and an old student of Uva College, Badulla and Mahajana College, Tellipalai. He is an accomplished scholar from the upcountry. He was also awarded the Vidyanithy title by the President in 2017.
Add new comment