Abstract:
As per the Public Administration Circular 1/ 2014 declared by Ministry of Public
Administration and Management, all the government sector employees in Sri Lanka
should have the official languages proficiency. Accordingly, the Tamil speaking
employees and the Sinhala speaking employees should pass the Sinhala Proficiency
Test/ the Tamil Proficiency Test respectively. The aims and the objectives of the
Official Languages Proficiency Examination mainly address effective
communication and translation in order to do official work successfully, catering the
needs of the country. The final examination respectively offers 70% and 30% marks
for the written paper and for the oral test. The government sector employees who
possess this qualification are paid a special allowance too. However, despite the
employees get through this examination it is problematic whether its aims are
actually accomplished and cater the actual language needs of the country. Thus, this
ongoing research investigates whether the practical component of the course is
actually practiced within the workplaces. This study also intends to research whether
the government sector employees of all the categories have the opportunity to sit for
the Official Languages Proficiency Examination, and the total number of the
candidates who passed the examination for the past five years.
