Intel and Ministry of Education to improve skoool.lk

• British Council English courses, science and math available in Sinhala and Tamil

Intel Sri Lanka, together with the Ministry of Education, launched the new and improved skoool.lk website to the students and teachers of the country recently.

The official web site of learning and teaching now has content from the local syllabus for two important subjects, science and mathematics which are now available in Sinhala and Tamil. The Sinhala and Tamil translations were facilitated by the University of Moratuwa.

The British Council, who have also come onboard, have made their ‘Learn English kids’ web content available on the site as well.

Speaking at the event, Minister of Education Bandula Gunawardana said: “Having seen how students were able to learn better using skoool.lk in English, we wanted to widen its user base. By providing some important subjects from the local syllabus, chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics course material in Sinhala and Tamil, students learning in our local languages would also be able to use this.

“At the same time, the addition of British Council’s English content will help us take English to students in every corner of the island. I would like to thank Intel and British Council for helping us in enriching the lives of our future generation.”

The Intel curriculum content program supports the access of educational content of mathematics and science in across 30 countries with over five million users annually. Through collaborations with education ministries, agencies, and expert teachers around the world, skoool delivers relevant, localised, and curriculum-aligned content to students worldwide.

This unique program also provides teachers and students online access to science and mathematics resources and tools in an engaging, multimedia environment to help improve learning.

Additional Secretary to the President Anura Dissanayake said: “With the high levels of distractions present in today’s environment, textbooks alone cannot stimulate the minds of students. Digital tools such as skoool will go a long way in boosting the cognitive development of our students helping them grasp concepts faster and better.

“With local syllabus content available in Sinhala and Tamil, the revamped skoool.lk is poised to remove the language barrier that was preventing some of our students from using this tool. At the same time, the British Council’s content on the site will help improve their proficiency in English.”

Addressing the gathering, British Council’s Galina Pereira said: “English is at the heart of the British Council’s cultural relations mission and purpose. We strive to create opportunities for millions of people around the world by improving their English language skills. This opens doors to education, employment, mobility and international engagement. Our vision globally, is to reach millions of teachers and learners of English and provide them with access to the best English language teaching and learning resources.

“This is exactly what we hope to achieve through our involvement in this project, the re-launching of skoool.lk. With the support of Intel and the Ministry of Education, thousands of pupils across the island now have easy access to the British Council’s learn English web content. We are currently working on mapping the current English language curriculum to the web material in order to assist teachers to better access and exploit the materials in their classrooms.”

Intel EM Limited Country Business Manager Indika de Zoysa said: “By providing local syllabus content in English, Sinhala, and Tamil, Intel aims to take this efficient and thorough method to all corners of Sri Lanka bringing together teachers and students and providing them with the tools required to help improve the standard of education in a far more engaging way. I am grateful to the Ministry of Education, University of Moratuwa and the British Council for their unstinted support in making the skoool learning and teaching program a success.” Launched as a pilot project in November 2007, skoool.lk was deployed with its full content in English in November 2009. Additional mathematics and science content in English language was added in July 2010.

The skoool learning and teaching program was recognised at the United Nations World Summit on ICT in 2003. Following this skoool also achieved a unique feat when it won the UK BETT show award for excellence in mathematics teaching in 2006.