Looking beyond primary, basic education

Text of speech delivered by Dr. Tara de Mel on the establishment of SAP Academy

IT gives me great pleasure to be present today at the launch of the SAP Academy. A facility with global outreach, providing human resource training in a variety of areas connected to e-business and software development is indeed a welcome initiative.

This is particularly significant at a time when, Sri Lanka is moving towards expanded growth in the IT-enabled service arena, and ICT education in general.

Widespread changes in the external and internal environments of Education - 'growth of knowledge at a break-neck pace, increased emphasis on employment generating skills, greater pressure for institutional autonomy and accountability - have characterised the expansion of education in recent times.

In this context, laying the foundation in schools and universities, to enable functioning in an information society, and to equip the new generations with relevant skills have been a considerable effort.

The government of Sri Lanka giving due recognition to ICT development has made special emphasis on training in ICT in the education sector.

Therefore, this occasion gives me an added opportunity of briefing this audience about initiatives taken in this regard and how important partnerships like what the SAP Academy is embarking upon, is relevant and timely.

For several years Sri Lanka has been well known in the development circles for its high levels of literacy. It has been hailed as a performing country in South Asia.

'Literacy' is traditionally defined as the ability to read and write. More recently this definition has undergone considerable change. Today basic competence in IT and Computer Science have become an invariable component of the term literacy.

We also know that in the case of IT literacy, Sri Lanka falls behind many of our neighbours and developing nation partners. Our student:computer ratio is about 150:1. Countries like Malaysia and Singapore, have excellent ratios 5:1 or 10:1.

Although we had established Computer Resource Centres covering all the districts of the country about a decade ago, we lagged behind in our emphasis to equip our children with knowledge of Computer Science.

Constructing computer labs or building IT units in schools is only one aspect of growth in this field. But if IT is not introduced into the curriculum as a separate subject and if IT is not used as a tool for learning subjects such as Science, Maths, Geography etc., our school going population will not become IT literate in the true sense. And this is precisely what has happened.

We have now recognized this deficiency and more recently started programs to ensure that schools include this subject in their curriculum.

Hence the introduction of General Information Technology as a separate subject in the Advanced Level curriculum from 2001. Now the plan is to introduce IT as a separate subject for the Ordinary Level from January 2006, and going further, concepts of Computer Science and of IT will be introduced into the primary and junior secondary schools from grades 1 to 9 in 2007 with the new curriculum revision.

Parallely, using IT as a tool for learning is also being made popular gradually. Undoubtedly this requires adequate access to computers across nearly 9500 schools in the country. At present out of 2539 schools with A/Level classes about 1800 have been equipped with IT labs.

Before the end of 2006 the balance will all have at least one modern IT laboratory. We are also introducing IT labs and equipping activity rooms with computers in selected schools in all districts, in a progressive manner.

In addition to funding from the national budget, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank funding would also help us with this endeavour.

Even if a school or classroom does not have a computer, we are encouraging children to use CDs in learning, along the lines of the Science and Maths syllabuses.

We are encouraging teachers to use computer resource centers or cyber cafes or computers in near-by schools and practice teaching-learning methods.

The majority of school teachers and some lecturers in universities are still 'afraid' of the computer - afraid to use it for personal use or as a tool for teaching.

In some countries each teacher possesses his or her own notebook. Power-point presentations and CD based interactive lesson material are norms in daily school life. Sadly, these have not entered our system, yet.

Recently we entered into a partnership with Microsoft for conducting competitions for encouraging and empowering teachers to develop their own software programs.

This is to improve their knowledge in IT. Such rewarding competitions will encourage teachers to use IT and to become familiar with computers.

The Ministry encourages such initiatives and such partnerships are coming our way more and more.

I am also happy to note a recent endeavour to tie-up with Dialog for creating model classrooms in cyber space and for using IT to facilitate Science education in the English medium.

The dearth of qualified teachers to conduct Science education in the English medium presents many challenges for students particularly from rural Sri Lanka.

Through this initiatives with Dialog, we plan to link resource-starved schools in remote parts of the country using IT, expose them to new technology and enable them to learn Science and Maths in a 'virtual' manner.

This pilot project will create virtual learning centres on experimental basis, using electronic communication technology such as voice, data and video conferencing.

Based on the success of this Pilot, we will launch a countrywide effort to promote Science and Maths education in English. Our plan is to use technology as a powerful catalyst to un-tap hidden potential of students.

With the new competency-based, modernised curriculum to be introduced, our aim is to accelerate building competency and skills in three subjects which form the backbone of students who will be employable in the labour market today. I am referring to Maths, Science and Information Technology.

In the last three years we have been able to introduce the option of English Medium teaching in Maths and Science and two other subjects in Grades 6 to 9 and in A/Level. From next year this facility will go in to the O/Level subjects as well.

We are proposing a radical departure from the existing methods of teaching these key subject areas. For instance, after 33 years Chemistry, Physics and Biology will be introduced at O/Level with the option of studying it in the English medium.

Teacher training with new methodology is being planned right now. Student projects will be made compulsory and they will be assessed through the School-based Assessments. The need to make projects compulsory is obvious.

We all know how student projects stimulate thinking, learning to solve problems, learning to analyze, and simply how they stimulate learning to learn. This is another departure from rote learning and regurgitating facts at examinations.

In the case of the primary, activity-based oral English will be expanded to include English medium teaching of primary Maths and for teaching of English from Grade 1.

Similarly arrangements have been made for reform of examination papers and textbook publication so that a more liberal policy in keeping with international standards will emerge.

It is unfortunate that we have been stifled in our efforts to expand and diversify the textbook publishing industry in recent decades leading to the lack of growth in that sector and thereby preventing children access to good quality books.

In the case of our state universities, we are making a desperate bid to enhance quality, improve performance and instill managerial and administrative competence to the vice chancellors and senior academics. It is a huge challenge for us to ensure that the large amounts of moneys given to universities are well spent.

Although Institutional autonomy and academic freedom have been amply restored within the university system - these have still not borne adequate fruit. Income generation by universities is still not sufficient.

We have decided to introduce for the first time a Public Expenditure Track System together with performance based funding formulae for universities and for some Teacher Training Colleges from next year.

Competitive bidding for funds and other resources and performance-based allocations from the budget is something brand new for this country.

University academics will be trained in this regard. Although Sri Lanka has been commended for achieving a high level of human development for a low income country, we lost our initial advantage in Asia.

The World Bank report presented last week, compared Sri Lanka to a single engine plane overtaken by the jets of South East Asia.

This is why we should look beyond mere universal access to primary basic education. This is why we are embarking upon second and third generation reforms, which will lead us to economic prosperity.

Therefore, the new cycle of financing will focus on higher-order learning, - e.g. Maths, ICT, Science and Technology, and advanced teaching-learning material.

The Sri Lankan education system is almost entirely state-funded and it covers 9500 schools, 13 universities and about 100 technical colleges.

With our relatively modest allocations from the national budget (3 per cent GDP, 8-9 per cent expenditure), even with assistance from developing partners like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Japan - the State by itself cannot shoulder the burden of expenditure for long.

Countries that out-paced and out-raced us (specially those in South East Asia) did so by expanding, diversifying and liberalizing education - specially tertiary education.

They did so also by building partnerships in education with recognised academic organisations inside and outside their countries.

Today in Sri Lanka about 105,00 students (out of about 250,000) qualify at A/Level but fail to enter universities. Our system has only about 15,000 placements in the State Universities. This amounts to about 4 per cent of the 18 - 25 age cohort.

About 7 per cent of students gain admission to private sector higher education training institutes in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, about 5000, students leave for overseas higher education annually, draining about Rs.2.5 billion every year.

Our restrictive policies of not formalising private sector higher education institutes (Sri Lanka is perhaps 1 out of 5 countries in the world which legally prohibits the establishment of foreign universities) have shut the doors to large numbers of students, from affordable and good quality higher education.

We need to swiftly change our thinking in this aspect, and not continue to deny large numbers of students such opportunities.

Prof. Amartya Sen defined development as freedom and literacy as the 'high road' to freedom. Today the high road to freedom is certainly literacy of the highest order.

New and powerful tools of learning must be placed in the hands of students, teachers and lecturers of universities - if we are at all serious about education reform.

Finally let me congratulate the creators of the SAP academy for the contribution towards the country's human resource development. We are pleased and proud to have you on our shores.

Let me also take this opportunity to hope that you will spread your wings to other sectors of advanced training as well, so that the Sri Lankan human resource base can be truly competitive in the global setting.