10 bonus points are added to your University Entrace score if you study another language for your examinations. The only other subject that attracts such a large number of bonus points is specialist Maths (Engineering Maths).
Both Sinhalese and Tamil can be offered as a subject for VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education).

As far as I can recall this incentive was introduced by the Victorian liberal (conservative) government, and is still continued by the Victorian labour government.

This is irrelevant to the above incentive, but the oposition leader of the Australian Labour Party and quite possibly the next Prime Minister Australia, Kevin Rudd, speaks fluent Mandarin and has had an interest in Chinese history and culture from a young age. One could say it is a sign of the times.

(Excuse me if I have double posted. The earlier post does not appear in my browser)

Anyone got the stats?

I think Sinhalese people would like to speak Tamil and many do. Sinhalese people have to live in this Island with Tamilians, and I for one am trying to learn, and I know some of my friends are too. There are lots of similarities in words and alphabet and grammer and I would rather be able to speak with all people living in this country.

There will also be more ethnic harmony if everyone spoke the other’s language, and less distrust. Wouldn’t you agree on that Justmal?

This isn’t Political Correctness or Utopian gone mad. It is simply common sense.

That attitude of yours – that it is not pragmatic to teach Tamil to millions of Sinhalese who can’t, frankly, be bothered – will be replied in kind by LTTE who would never allow for people wanting to learn Sinhala. The longer this attitude persists in both sides, the longer this conflict will continue.

Besides, who is talking about millions of Sinhalese? We are talking about kids – starting with the Nursery level and going all the way up to Grade 10 – from both sides, learning the language. They are the future and the sooner we start with the them, the sooner this country will stop thinking about stupid shit like this – let alone discussing it at various forums, offline and online – and go about reaching it’s undoubted potential.

Besides, what harm is there in letting kids learn a new language? And, deny it all you want, but to kids in Jaffna Sinhala is a new language; their exposure to Sinhala is much less than Sinhalese kids in the South are exposed to Tamil through various media.

If you view language purely as a means of communication then yes, it may well seem pointless for Singhalese people to learn Tamil. But in my opinion, language is a hugely important part of a person’s cultural identity, and so if two people from different ethnic communities understand the other’s language, they are more likely to understand one another generally, helping to break down the “us and them” atmosphere that we have in this country today.
And also, adults may be unwilling to learn a new language but children are generally quite eager and can pick up two or even three additional languages to what they speak at home very easily. The difficult part is putting the education policies in place and making sure there are adequate teachers in all schools all over SL…The actual language learning process is easy.

Hopefully, this is not a dream.