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by Anil Pagoda Arachchi

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's bona fide interest and unflagging efforts to reflect the cultural diversity and social reality of the Sri Lankan society in the Education reforms now in operation in the country seem to bear signs of creating a future generation as an organic component of the society based on social and cultural integration.

In her message to the booklet prepared by the Presidential Task Force on General Eduction Reforms, she categorically states that the education system that was prevalent then had failed in responding to the needs of our people to the demands of an expanding economy and to the challenges of the emerging 21st century.

One of these challenges, as she mentioned in her address to the nation at the 50th independent anniversary of the country, is to define the independence we obtained from the colonial rulers in order to create a Sri Lankan nation. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to discuss some problems related to the implementation of this process and to explore the avenues in order to find viable solutions for them.

Learning other cultures

It is a fact that, particularly in the Sri Lankan context, education has a fundamental role to play in national integration; and education reforms give a prominent place for this national goal.

And one feasible initiative for national integration is to evolve an education system for cultural diversity.

However, the concept has to be defined taking into consideration of the socio cultural background of the Sri Lankan society. What is special in our country, unlike some Western countries where there are students coming from different ethnic groups in a classroom, the majority of the schools are segregated except a few schools in major cities and number of international schools.

This shows that in many of the Sri Lankan classrooms there prevails a homogeneous cultural background, which prevent the students from acquiring first-hand experience of the cultural aspects of the other communities.

Therefore, it has become a big challenge for the educationist and the teachers to think of new teaching and learning strategies for this task.

This is so important for merely having a good knowledge of various aspects of the other cultures is not enough for bringing in an attitudinal change in students. It is likely to take place only if the students have a deeper understanding of how and why those aspects are embedded in such cultures. The education provided by the school must make them genuinely feel the need to acquire a cultural understanding of the other communities.

Pluralism

It has become really important to make the student population to acknowledge the existence of pluralism but also to recognise this situation not as a threat but as being valuable for the country.

However, there seems to be a rather misconception among some of our people of what pluralism is.

Therefore, it is up to the people concerned with the formulation of educational policy to provide an education in the school system in which the concept of pluralism can be understood not as a threat for the majority but as a value which leads to the understanding of the rights of others to be different.

Interaction of different cultures and how they change without losing their identities must also be integrated into the school syllabuses, and at the same time it is very necessary to seek the commonalities in order to build bridges between different cultures.

What is more important is the fact that cultural conflict can be more creative and productive and less destructive.

Thus, the students of all communities must be provided the opportunity to explore the creativity inherent in the complexity of the Sri Lankan culture.

Educational challenges

Since the majority of the schools in the country are monocultural ones, there is a greater possibility for cross-cultural misunderstanding.

Hence addressing this issue is a challenge not only for the educational policy planners and curriculum designers but also for the teachers and parents.

It has been found in some other pluralistic societies that different socio-cultural expectations and discourse patterns can cause miscommunication and misunderstanding between different cultural groups.

As discussed elsewhere in this article, the background in the majority of the schools in Sri Lanka is mono-ethnic, and this makes the teacher's task of drawing a true picture of the pluralistic character of the country rather difficult.

Therefore, it is essential for the teachers to be aware of such differences, and the activities dealing with the intercultural eduction have to be fully integrated into school practices. To implement this task, teachers need to have a comprehensive training on education for cultural diversity and education for social cohesion.

Another challenge for the educationist of the country is to evolve an intercultural approach to education provided in schools in order to achieve a synthesis through a dialogue between cultural groups to aim at unity out of diversity.

Thus, school education must give rise to a movement which can transcend the sectarianism of the past decades. This situation requires all educators to examine all aspects of our educational practice and to seek opportunities to confront ethnocentrism and replace it with multiculturalism.

It is heartening to see that education reforms spearheaded by the President aim at establishing a common practice through the curriculum for intercultural understanding.

However, the implementation of the changes made in the reforms still seems to encounter certain drawbacks due to a number of issues. I suggest that a special committee could be formed to look into problems faced by the principals and teachers in the process of implementing the reforms and to accelerate the process.

The inclusion of cultural aspects of the other communities should not be restricted only to a few subjects such as English langauge and Environment Studies, but a wide perspective of such cultural knowledge and practices can be integrated to other subject areas as well not only through the syllabi but also through teaching methodology and assessment criteria.

For example, the geography syllabus can be revised so as to pay more attention to the geographical location of the different ethnic communities of the country and to incorporate different features of their respective agricultural patterns and practices, home industry, social relationships and so on.

The variety of cultural phenomena with a perspectives of the outside world should be evident in all aspects of education ranging from the content of the textbooks to the teaching methodology and assessment procedures.

The other important thing is to describe all cultures in a sympathetic manner in their own terms rather than trying to judge them from ethnocentric or eurocentric cultural concepts.

And the most significant matter is to include accurate information about different cultures and encourage the students to see the cultural diversity of their own society with a positive outlook.

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