Even though the numbers of outgoing Sri Lankan labour migrants are high, there are no procedures in place to systematically deliver vocational-oriented foreign language training for migrant workers. As a result of this lack in language proficiency, migrant workers are more vulnerable to rights violations and maltreatment at the workplace in their host countries.
Currently, the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau (SLBFE), part of the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare (MFEPW) has only a few ad hoc arrangements to deliver foreign languages for migrant workers. The Ministry, having recognized this issue, has decided to comprehensively rearrange the foreign language training and requested IOM’s technical and financial assistance.
To improve overall protection of migrant workers through enhancing their ability to understand and communicate, IOM, in close consultation and in partnership with the MFEPW and SLBFE proposes to establish and equip a state of the art Model Language Laboratory with international standards in Sri Lanka. The laboratory is to deliver foreign language training for the most demanded languages of countries to which low-skilled Sri Lankan migrant workers are traveling to. To establish the laboratory, IOM will prepare a study report that identifies user requirement, technology to be used, human resource requirement, testing and evaluation methods and necessary institutional and administrative arrangements. Language instructors will be trained in the usage of laboratory installations and language learning software.