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by Dr. Tara de Mel

Recent news highlighting the protests made by parents, the hue and cry made by politicians of all parties concerning the delays in text book distribution and the factual inaccuracies in them, are all reminiscent of one of the gravest challenges that confronted me as the Secretary to the Ministry in charge of Education few years ago.

Schoolchildren - their future depends on our diligence.

All parents and most citizens of this country would understand that enabling children to have easy access to text books prescribed by the school, is a fundamental human right.

These text books should be provided efficiently and effectively through a state-controlled system (as it was envisaged to be in this country) or in the alternative, the state must ensure the easy availability of books in the market at a reasonable price, in all parts of the country (as is the practice in other parts of the world).

Noble initiative

The Sri Lankan Government opted to provide school text books up to the GCE O/L classes, free of charge since 1980. This was a noble initiative which enhanced the concept of equity.

However, while on the one hand we introduced the excellent principle of promoting equality in accessing educational material, on the other hand, by entrusting the responsibility of book writing, production and distribution exclusively to the State we committed a series of blunders.

The blunders were that we compromised on the quality of the books produced and we seriously hampered the regular distribution of books in accordance with given schedules effectively.

We also paved the way, through this state-monopolistic regime, for not building our own capacity for writing and publishing text books.

The result was that, we not only produced dull, drab and unappealing text books that children found least attractive, but that the text books contained mistakes, gross errors which on many occasions infringed on serious ethno-religious sensitivities.

Significant drawbacks

The most significant drawbacks of this system were that the monopoly of writing, editing and authorizing the publishing of text books was enshrined solely with either the Education Publication Department or with the National Institute of Education (NIE) and that these books were not made available to any one who wished to purchase them in the open market.

Consequently, if the state systems (i.e.-the Ministry, EPD/NIE, provincial authorities) collapsed or failed to achieve their mission and keep to their targets, it was to be at the cost of school going children, placing their education in jeopardy.

It now becomes clear, why the text book issue posed a serious challenge to the ministry responsible for Education.

To my mind, the primary challenges of the time (i.e. 2000-2001) were two fold.

The first was to ensure that children received their prescribed text books for 2002 before they left school for the December 2001 vacation.

This challenge was compounded by the tensions created at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament which justifiably raised the issue of delays in text book distribution in successive years, with strong criticisms.

The PAC which consists of MPs of all political parties and had the Auditor General as a member, wanted an assurance from the Ministry that the mistakes of the past would not be committed.

Under the given circumstances how could one make such promises confidently? Nevertheless as the CEO of a key Ministry such as Education, where the future of many children was at stake, one was simply obliged to do so.

Task before us

The task before us then was to put all available systems on 'Go' and to ensure that the job was done. The effort required by the Ministry and its allies, (namely the EDP and the provincial authorities) was phenomenal.

My mind goes back to the "Task Team" assigned to carry out this assignment. They named it the Mission Impossible and frequently cautioned me not to have any unrealistic ambitions concerning accomplishing this near impossible task.

Yet they gave confident assurances that the best will be done. S. Thillainadarajah (Additional Secretary to the Ministry in charge of the subject at the time) W. Rajapakse (then Commissioner of the Education Publications Department-EDP), Ariya Wickrama (Consultant/World Bank Project) and the staff of the EDP, put in a herculean effort working virtually around the clock, to get the job done.

The responsibility of text book printing was traditionally entrusted with the state institutions (i.e. the Government Printer, (GP), and the State Printing Corporation, (SPC) and to printers from the private sector.

It was also the practice, for the dead lines set by the Ministry to be violated in successive years, particularly by the private sector printers, leading to delays in schools receiving books prior to the new academic year.

2001 special plans

In the year 2001, special plans were developed by the EDP to avoid this problem. The Commissioner then, took great pains to persuade the GP, the SPC and the 18 private sector printers chosen for the task, to deliver the books on time.

Their print schedules were obtained well before time, and systems for strict monitoring and supervision were firmly in place, to ensure that the targets were met.

The Print Order was placed by the Ministry on June 19 and by November 1st more than 90 per cent of the required books were delivered to the stores. This enabled the EPD to start distributing the books to schools well before the December vacation.

The 'Mission Impossible' thus became "Mission Accomplished" when at a colourful ceremony presided over by the then Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama, the book and uniform distribution for 2002 was inaugurated at the Ehetuwewa Bandaranaike Maha Vidyalaya in Kurunegala on November 28, 2001.

The second challenge concerning text books was in relation to introduction of the Multiple Book Option (MBO).

The MBO was a programme proposed through World Bank General Education Project 2 (GEP 2). This proposal intended to introduce the option of being able to choose one book out of three for a given subject.

The practice that had prevailed prior to the MBO was, that the school had to use the books given by the Ministry, with no other options made available.

The glaring virtue of the MBO was, that a subject specialist panel (SSP) appointed by the Commissioner EPD, was to evaluate each book individually based on certain stipulated criteria and they were to select the best 3 books for the given subject, written by experts in the relevant area.

Establishing an SSP which consisted of educationists, teachers, principals, and other subject specialists was a novel practice introduced for the first time for text book publishing through the MBO.

The SSP was expected to vouch for the content of each book, its conformity to the syllabus, the level of language, art work and illustrations, design and layout and relevant sensitivities.

The errors in text books, were reduced to less than 1% of the previous figures, since the SSP system was introduced. It also gave great opportunities for teachers and principals to enter the territory of book writing, hitherto dominated exclusively by either the NIE or the EPD.

The advantages of the MBO could be summarized thus:

1. Removing the necessity for children to use only one prescribed text book for each given subject was the most notable. The option was given to the school to select the most appropriate book per subject, out of 3 books produced in accordance with the prescribed syllabus.

2. In addition to the book selected by the school, the other two books were to be made available as supplementary reading material.

3. Introduction of the MBO removed the monopoly of the state (i.e. EPD, NIE) in writing and editing all books.

4. A competitive bidding procedure adopted through this scheme was to enable a variety of experts to contribute their efforts in writing books in keeping with globally recognised standards.

5. As a spin off, if the MBO was successful it would also pave the way to build capacity in text book writing and publishing among Sri Lankans and thereby create value addition in every way.

However, the safeguards required for perfect execution of the MBO were many. Absolute assurance of quality, checking content validity to ensure adherences to prescribed criteria, the selection of best writers and publishers and of course ensuring the delivery of books on time, were some of these.

Another pre-requisite for effective implementation of the MBO would be to quickly set in motion the processes to modernise and upgrade the infrastructure and other facilities of the EPD.

The monies set aside by the World Bank 2 years ago for computerisation of the stores and for the purpose of infrastructure development must be used expeditiously.

Without these systems firmly in place, introducing the MBO would not be sound policy.

In the year 2001, persuading the Government to accept the MBO as programme was difficult. The politically motivated protests at that time were many.

It took several discussions and debate, and repeated explanations to the authorities that were to understand and accept the true vision of the MBO.

Finally, despite many hurdles, the President was able to convince the Cabinet that they should accept this policy and that they should support the Ministry in its implementation.

This was the genesis of the MBO.

Text books and their availability (or rather the lack of it) create many headaches to parents and many heartaches to students who have to face the music when they troop into class sans their new books at the beginning of each year.

Moreover, depriving school children of good quality books, which are accurately written and attractively laid out in keeping with world-class standards, is a crime for which the state must take responsibility.

Too often we have seen how possession of wealth and class have been the key determinants of access to certain elements of eduction.

Limiting placements in state universities to only 2 per cent of that age cohort in this country while those who are qualified (nearly 100,000 each year) but cannot afford fee-levying higher education either here or overseas are left high and dry, is one such example.

The other glaring instance of inequality is where children who opt to study in the English medium cannot do so in the state-school system. Had they the ability to attend international schools (or certain private schools) paying handsome fees, they would be privileged to choose and study in the medium of their choice.

The twin policies of enabling A/Level science students to study in English and teaching selected subjects in Grades 6, 7, 8 in English were two land-mark initiatives introduced by the Ministry in 2001, intended to at least minimise the duplicity of our existing policies in this context.

The same fate must not befall schoolchildren in relation to text books. Regular availability of good quality text books must not be the sole privilege of those attending fee-levying schools, be they private or international. If must be a facility available to the large majority of the 4.3 m schoolchildren attending State schools in this country.

When governments boast of providing equity or equal access to free-education, let it not be just paying lip service to catchy, politically impressive slogans. Let it be at the very least a fair attempt to match deed with word and action with thought. Ideally it should be a genuine desire, to give at least what we got in the form of free eduction decades ago.

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