The National Savings Bank (NSB) extended its CSR campaign to achieve the Bank’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by offering to run a pilot project to improve English proficiency by selecting national schools that had a rate less than 50% success rate for the English language. for the GCE (O/L) exam in 2017.
The project was recently launched at the Ministry of Education.
As an international language and a basic requirement for many professions, the project will encourage scholars, parents and schoolchildren in the region to approach the subject with confidence.
Recognizing the critical need for strong English language skills in today’s ever-expanding globalization, technological advancements and modernized labor markets, the NSB will implement the “English is Simple” project with the cooperation of the Department of Education.
Providing a better future for our next generation through quality education is one of our key Sustainable Development Goals for 2019. Preliminary research by the Bank found that Department of Education statistics indicate that the English language has the lowest GCE pass rate (O/L).
Lack of English proficiency is a major constraint affecting employability, higher education opportunities and confidence in a globalized world.
Although teaching English as a second language to all school children has been a key social policy of successive Sri Lankan governments since the early 1950s, population and housing census data indicate that literacy in English is only 22% among the Sri Lankan population over the age of 15. .
School children and teachers from the selected schools from grades 8 to 11 will be the direct beneficiaries of the SDG project and, at the request of the Ministry of Education, the programs will be shared between all the schools on the island.
The National Savings Bank has shared a deeply rooted savings culture and heritage among Sri Lankans for hundreds of years.
Through timely technological, product and service transformations, the NSB reached an asset base of Rs. 1 trillion in 2018 and the trust of millions of Sri Lankans. As a government entity, NSB has identified the need to recognize and respond to the SDGs in line with government guidelines.
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