Archives

by Dr. Tara de Mel

Let's dream a while. Lets imagine a situation where, Sri Lanka is governed by a new and progressive Education Act, which highlights the following:

* Complete freedom of choice in relation to the education one wishes to receive.

* Where the Government becomes the chief regulator and monitor and not the prescriber of education policy.

* Where one can choose the medium of instruction and examinations, freely.

* A modernized teacher service, where dedicated recruits teach with commitment and for the joy of teaching.

* New and relevant schemes for school and university admission are implemented with justice and fair play to all.

* Novel and vibrant public-private partnerships in education,... and so on.

Is it healthy to dream the impossible dream?

Most thinkers, and ideologues frequently engage in this seemingly "frivolous' act. Often such acts lead to great changes and ground breaking initiatives in many fields - education or otherwise.

Abraham Lincoln, in a letter written to the head master of his son's school highlighted the qualities a father expects a teacher to inculcate in his child -"He, my son, will have to learn I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader, and that for every enemy there is a friend". Leaders of the calibre of Lincoln are naturally few and hard to find. But in our own times we have had men (and women) who have broken ground and attempted to bring in change - significant change for the better, into our system of education. Where, how and why they failed to achieve all what they aimed for, are questions we need to find the answers for.

Education, in this country has always been a point of heightened interest. Take the time of ideologues like JE Jaysooriya who aimed to provide a uniform system of education, which would reach by and large the entire population of that time. His attempts did bear fruit, in that today, our literacy rates are indeed enviable, by the standards of the rest of the developing world.

There was also the father of free education, that great man Kannangara, who established a series of Centers of Excellence i.e. one Central School per electorate, aiming to ensure that the rural kids had access to what was accessible to those in urban areas and what was best at that time. Kannangara attempted to use English to bridge the gulf between the social elite and the rural classes. Here we had a truly selfless and visionary leader, who initiated a sea-change of new reforms. They ranged from expanding good quality educational opportunities to bright young students through scholarship schemes and the like, to diversifying curricula to suit the times - to introducing midday meals and other forms of student welfare - to improving the status of the teaching profession from what it was at that time. Not only did the free education system Kannangara introduced liberate our people, but it also made us what we are today - a country with high literacy and numeracy, noteworthy figures for primary school enrolment, comparable to the rich nations of the world. One would also appreciate that the English medium educated alumni of the then Central Schools are some of our strongest advocates on education, in civil society, today.

It was during those glory years that our education system was the envy of some of today's leading personalities like Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamed. It was a system that was poised to take off to great heights.

But then we saw the unfortunate happen. Today, several decades after our true liberation from British rule we see a general decline in the standards of our system of education. At the present time we have a system of "free education", which is actually not free. A large proportion of our 4.2 million school children, some as young as 8-9 years, are seeking alternative education - i.e. they are the hapless victims of a thriving and burgeoning tuition industry both in the cities and villages alike. Evidently the class room teaching in our schools is inadequate and the competition at exams too heavy for children to depend entirely on the school system. Thus, the diminished impact of this so called "free education".

Today we also see a system which consistently failed to build a true national identity. Over the years because of our achaic syllabuses and curricula, because of our restrictive policy on the medium of instruction in schools and our non-responsive methods of teaching which did not keep pace with the rapid changes that took place across the globe, we created generations of children unable to communicate effectively with one another. This gave rise to children living in virtual isolation from their peers belonging to different races-barring of course the few privileged children who were English educated and those who came from English speaking homes.

These same primitive policies have kept our children trapped within the confines of a narrow spectrum of books and other materials, in Sinhala and Tamil. The world closed up for them. Not only did the English reading habit die a gradual and morbid death, but this also paved the way for the English book publishing industry to fold up and become virtually extinct. The inevitable consequence was, that it was our children who lost the race, in trying to keep pace with the advancing roller coaster of knowledge and technology that took the rest of the world by storm.

Over a period we watched helplessly, while the state set itself the goal of determining such policy and of entrenching itself firmly and irrevocably into our Education system. The roots of the political and state bureaucracy grew too long and too strong.

With passing time a variety of school admission schemes and university selection criteria were proposed.

However those that were accepted and implemented were never dynamic and progressive enough to keep abreast with the newer demands we faced, year after year. As a result many generations of bright and talented children lost many opportunities they will never get again.

A classic example of a draw back of the present university admission scheme was highlighted in the recent drama that unfolded on using the z-core system. The z-score formula was introduced by experts to erase out possible disparities between two batches of students (one which had offered 3 subjects for the A'level, and the other 4 subjects) vying for university admission. This was necessary because university admission was decided by aggregate marks. No developed country in the world uses 'A' level aggregate marks alone for university selection, specially for disciplines like Medicine. Due to such policies and the existing district quota system, we deprive kids with excellent 'A' Level grades from entering university. This has given rise to a much disappointed and frustrated group of young people leaving school every year. University admission schemes should ideally be designed by each individual university. Giving these institutions such appropriate autonomy was proposed when developing the new Universities Act in 2000, which of course never saw the light of day. If the said new Act was accepted we would have also seen many off-shore campuses of recognised universities like Monash, Harvard, Aberdeen, take root in our system like they are in Singapore and Malaysia. We may have even produced Centres of Excellence in higher education, catering to some of the 1.2 billion tertiary level students in South and East Asia.

But perhaps these ideas are destined to remain as dreams. People ask me if it is worth continuing to dream of a utopian system of education for our country.

By utopian I mean a situation where excellence and equity go hand in hand. A situation where all kids irrespective of social class can reach out and have access to what he/she considers is best. A situation where we don't confine the number of University places to only 2% of that age cohort. Where we do not limit opportunities of good quality tertiary education, only to the wealthy, who can seek their destinies overseas. Today, out of about 100,000 A'Level students who qualify at the A'Level examination and out of about 35,000 of them who apply to the 13 universities in this country, only about 12,500 will get places. So every year about 22,500 students, some of them with excellent A'Level grades, have the doors of university education shut on them. This has been the single recipe for breeding discontent and frustration among our young school leavers. How has this subject been approached from a political perspective, in Sri Lanka and other countries? Has education been identified as a centre point in our development agenda? Has Sri Lanka been different to other countries when prioritizing education in relation to other sectors targeted for development?

More recent to our times was Bill Clinton, who made education the chief platform in his second election campaign ("Education, Education and Education") in the USA. Also in the USA, Governor Patton, contesting elections in the State of Kentucky added a 4th to his campaign slogan, (ie "Education, Education, Education and Education"). No doubt this was the fashion of the times, since following suit rapidly was Tony Blair in 1997. Education, for long near the top of the agenda became the main battle ground of British politics during that General Election. Blair declared, "Education is my first, second and third priority". His Advisor on Education Professor Michael Barber, who later became the Head of the Standards and Effectiveness Unit of the Department of Education and Employment, eagerly sought a revolution in education for his country. He steadfastly maintained that the energy, knowledge, imagination, skill and investment needed to reform the British education sector came from effective and novel partnerships. He showed examples from other countries how a vibrant private sector helped to enhance the competitiveness and quality of the public sector.

Blair believed in bringing in professionalism to teachers and teaching. He argued for recruiting the best and for bringing in measures to retain the best. He believed that electorates were fickle and were not prepared to wait for too long to see change. How right he was. But was he successful in implementing all the reforms proposed? The current serious problem and controversy on the GCE A'Level (AS Level), students not achieving the expected mastery levels in literacy and numeracy, and problems with teacher unions all of which led to the resignation of the Education Secretary, is the most glaring issue facing the British education system today. Although much was promised by the Blair regime, and many policies were clearly articulated, the public didn't feel or see the desired impact. So much so, what was commonly said was that the Blair Government education policy was only "a lot of hot air and forceful rhetoric" with no clear indication of achieving successful results, so far.

Like I said before we had own our share of leaders with a passion for education. The most recent was President Kumaratunga, who declared ambitiously, 1997 as the "Year of Education Reforms". She then set forth briskly, through several Presidential Task Forces, to implement a series of new Reforms proposed by the National Education Commission during 1991-1996. In addition, during her term of governance, some excellent progressive new initiatives were proposed - like opening up tertiary education for private sector participation thereby facilitating the further expansion of the tertiary sectors, setting up an independent and autonomous accreditation institution for the purpose of quality assurance of both public and private universities, promulgating new regulations and mending the Education Ordinance of 1938 to enable schools to use optional English medium in all grades and for a new school admission policy to be implemented with transparency providing educational equity in a just and fair manner. All these changes were proposed on the basis that the existing free eduction systems in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors would be preserved, strengthened and developed. "Vision 2010", a comprehensive policy document covering all disciplines and sectors prepared by the Department of National Planning last year, spells these out further. But how successful was the President and her government then, in achieving the desired results at the classroom and university level?

Without bias, I can confidently say that certain significant and unprecedented reforms were implemented. However, much more could have been done. Had all the education reforms proposed then, been implemented into with speed and efficiency, the picture today would have been so much different.

Reforming the education system does not mean tinkering with or just taking tentative steps for change. Nor does it mean doing piece meal changes that seem politically-friendly at the time, while glossing over the glaring issues. If we are serious, it means a complete overall of the entire system in all aspects. This never happened although many people hoped it would. So what went wrong?

Escaping from the multiple layers of state bureaucracy, and its inherent inertia succumbing to a variety of external pressures and the over-powering political influence that stood between policy making and implementation at ground level, posed significant problems. Funding constraints contributed to this. Also, the state could not sufficiently re-vigorate and enthuse the teachers to value and revere the teaching profession, so that teaching becomes joyous and not a deadly chore. I have repeatedly said that it is the teacher who will play the most crucial role in bringing in 'change' into the system. I still maintain that the teacher is the change agent for this ambitious reforms programme.

In the past we had teachers who made and moulded our hearts and our minds. They were also more affluent, unlike those of the present day, who depend entirely on their wages to feed their kith and kin. Therefore today teachers come to school grudgingly, undergoing many hardships. They are more eager to get back home, and augment their income by giving extra classes after school. Despite significant increases in teacher salaries that were introduced a few years ago, we still couldn't compensate them sufficiently to perform their critical role in our education system. Many teachers still languish in difficult areas of the country for several years, unable to obtain transfer to the better areas.

So many years of chronic interference in all aspects of education, has left that sector bruised and demoralized. Education offices in the provinces and the line ministry became dumping grounds, for political favourites and for compensative "IOUS". Many myopic decisions paved the way for unsuitable and incompetent people to enter the system and to remain there. Those hungry for power treated education like a political football - to be kicked into whichever goal they fancied at that particular time. The few who tried to instill professionalism, restore dignity and wipe out mediocrity were not tolerated. They either quit the system or were forced to. The victims were only the children of several generations.

Therefore, today more than ever we need ambitious dreamers. We need them to dream that we can energetically develop this system and make it work. That one day we can leave behind a legacy; a legacy where education is safely in the hands of dedicated persons, who will selflessly strive to make this sector one that the country can be proud of. They should also dream with passion and purpose, that they can make these dreams become a reality.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager