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| Friday, 20 February 2004 |
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Prof. J.E. Jayasuriya - Doyen of Educators - part 2 Continued from February 13 A tribute by Sterling Perera, former Commissioner of Examinations and Director, Planning and Research, Ministry of Education. After his premature retirement as Professor of Education in 1971, he was invited by UNESCO, Regional Office for Education in Asia and the Pacific (ROEAP), Bangkok, to lead a new venture in education as regional Adviser on Population Education. It was a pioneering effort requiring much innovation as well as adaptation to suit the vast cultural diversity of the Asia Pacific Region extending from Iran and Afghanistan in the West to the Pacific Islands in the East. The academic stance of a liberal tradition of education, exemplified by Prof. Jayasuriya is evident from the outcomes of his endeavours. He set about designing guidelines and approaches that gave Population Education the flavour of an academic discipline. It could have narrowed down to family planning propaganda and indoctrination in other hands. Activities for preparing the young to make rational choices regarding family size through education began to be supported by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) from the early seventies. As national policies favouring such activities began to be encouraged and supported by UNFPA the demand for designing curricula and approaches increased. Dr. Raja Roy Singh, former Director-General, ROEAP, in his tribute to Prof. Jayasuriya, states that 'in the Asian region, we were fortunate to be able to call upon the unique professional experience and longstanding commitment of Professor Jayasuriya in developing population programmes. - With Professor at the helm, population education became a dynamic and pacesetting element in the regional education programme'. First task He was keen to provide training and guidelines for endogenous development of national programmes rather than providing centrally developed curricula for uniform implementation. One of his first tasks was setting about the mechanisms for compiling a comprehensive Source Book on Population Education. It was during one of the work sessions related to the Source Book, in Honolulu in 1972, that I was quite fortuitously asked by Prof. Jayasuriya, to take note of population education as a field for study and specialization, which I naturally heeded. I was attending an orientation course in Honolulu as a Fulbright scholar before enrolling at Columbia University in New York. The coordinator of the workshop was Prof. Sloan Wayland, Dean of Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University. This introduction and advice was prophetic because I was called upon to be the Deputy Executive Officer of the UNFPA, Population Education Project, on my return to the country in 1974. The association with the subject continued for the next 15 years during which time I had to head the project as director, concurrent with my other designations. It was also during this time the association with Prof. Jayasuriya became closer, as internee in population education in Bangkok in 1975 and thereafter as a frequent participant of UNESCO population education programmes on curriculum development and evaluative research. After his retirement from UNESCO he served our project as a consultant in evaluation. He continued his academic work in education and among the invaluable outputs of which were the books, 'Education in Korea - a Third World Success Story' and 'Education Policies and Progress'. In these too he attempted to guide education in Sri Lanka. I think in his book on Korea, he vicariously enjoyed the success of that country, although he would have loved to recount such a success in Sri Lanka. Among the post retirement assignments in Sri Lanka were his engagements as consultant in the UNDP, Quality Improvement Project with Eric J. de Silva in 1982, as member of the first Council of the National Institute of Education from 1986 and as member of the Committee appointed by the Minister of Education to Report on the Progress and Review on the First Phase of the GCE (O/L) Continuous Assessment Programme, in 1988. As Commissioner of Examinations. I was the Secretary of the Committee and it gave me another opportunity to become closely associated with him again. He attended every meeting, punctually and was one of the most active members. Although he had reservations on the way we set about introducing Continuous Assessment, he appreciated the fact that it was one of biggest ventures of the Ministry, involving development of a conceptual framework, training of hundreds of subject specialists add thousands of teachers and the writing and distributing more a hundred assessment guides to 5,500 schools all within a lead time of a few months. The Committee however recommended continuation of the programme with necessary modifications. Tribute I wish to end this tribute with a personal note to indicate his compassion and caring concern towards his pupils. He visited me at my residence on the Poson poya day of 1989, solely for the purpose of presenting me with an autographed, expensive 670 page version of the Dhammapada. He had written a note stating that he wanted to give me something to treasure and requesting me accept it with his compliments. I was moved to tears by this kind gesture of a person so revered by his pupils. I am sure that there are many others who will remember Prof. Jayasuriya this day, with experiences of a similar endearing gesture, exemplifying his true greatness. (Concluded) |
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