Sri Lankan government will pay incentives to state employees who will learn additional local languages,including Tamil,to reduce the communication gap with people of Tamil origin in the Sinhalese-dominated nation.
The move aims to reduce the communication gap between those in the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern parts and the rest of the Sinhalese-majority country.
“Most of the problem we have been facing on Saturday,could have been avoided if everyone communicate in an additional language” Prime Minister D M Jayaratne said.
Many blame the Sinhala-only policy of 1956 for the escalation of ethnic tension,which erupted into a full-blown Tamil separatist war in the early 1980s.
Tamil,however was also recognised as an official language on par with Sinhalese in 1988,a year after the Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord which sought,but failed to end the separatist struggle.