A peace-oriented education

We may be understating the case by saying that the interview carried on this page today with the head of the National Child Protection Authority, Professor Harendra de Silva, is an eye-opener to the stresses suffered by a good many of the country's children.

It is much more than that. It could be described as a scathing indictment of a system of education which was totally insensitive to the essential emotional and intellectual needs of the growing mind.

Note-taking, rote learning and teacher-centred education took centre stage in our educational system until President Kumaratunga had the perspicacity to launch her educational reforms some years back. The main thrust of these reforms was to almost entirely reorient the educational process at primary and secondary school levels. We now learn that this curriculum is being reviewed with a view to revising it in 2007.

This is as it should be because no curriculum could be considered sacrosanct; educational curricular need to be periodically revised to take into account the growing needs of the student.

As pointed out by Professor de Silva, our primary and secondary students have been subjected to acute competition as a result of the excessive examination orientation of the educational system. This has done grave harm to the personality development of students and taken the joy out of their lives.

The educational reform process spearheaded by the President and consistently administered by Education Ministry Secretary, Dr. Tara de Mel, aims at ending this stultifying process of education.

The focus of this reform process is a competency and activity-based learning experience which would reduce the work load of the student and end the top-down, teacher-centred regimen associated with the traditional learning process.

Consequently, the student would now be in a position to exercise his creativity and autonomy to a greater extent, learning through a series of activity-centred projects which he would be carrying out with fellow students.

It could be said that cooperation and creativity would take the place of cut-throat competition. It couldn't be assumed, however, that this process would be smooth-sailing. It has to be continually reviewed and revised to meet new realities. This is being done at present and we wish the project all the success it could muster.

National rejuvenation, we believe, begins in school.

If a tolerant and peaceful country is our aim, the students produced by our school system need to be caring and loving.

This end was not possible under the former system of education which tended to bring out some of the basest drives in the human personality.

All this could now be changed, provided the new system is implemented effectively. We are glad that peace is getting its due place in the educational reforms through the emphasis attached to values, such as, tolerance, pluralism and ethnic amity. Let there be no turning back.