Education: where do we go from here?:

Restructuring primary education

Excerpts from the sixth annual Sujata Jayawardena memorial oration by Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga delivered on November 26 at the BMICH. Part I appeared yesterday.

It appears that knowledge inputs dominate this entire formula. To obtain full benefits of this growth prescription, we have to re-orient our educational system to enhance quality at all educational levels and in certain key areas of knowledge.

We have to aim at professional and scientific excellence and proficiency in ICT and English language and promotional activity in research and training. These reforms will necessarily entail a big outlay of public expenditure in eduction. But, there can be no doubt that the benefits expected will far outweigh the cost. It is also vital to secure the active participation of the private sector in this endeavour.

Let me now speak about the three main components in our system of education, classified as:

* Primary and Secondary Education

* Tertiary Education in the universities

* Non-university tertiary education (Vocational and technical education)

I will devote more time in respect of the first, i.e. primary and secondary education in the school system. Since Dr. Kannangara, Father of Free Education presented the recommendations of the Education Executive Committee to the State Council of Ceylon, there have been numerous attempts to put the system right. Every Government since independence made significant contributions towards reforming the education system but we still need to do some serious work to make the schools system deliver what the country really needs. In regard to the schools system,

n There must be a clear separation between the primary school and the secondary school. This had first been proposed by Dr. Kannangara in his address to the State council. No school must have a primary and secondary together. They have to be separate entities, independent of each other.

n Under the grading, classification and organization of schools, he recommended that “schools shall be divided into two grades, primary and post-primary.” This has relevance even today because there is a huge rush to admit children to what are known as national schools and also popular schools. This has made schools grow in pupil numbers to as much as 8,000 on its roll making it difficult to manage. Royal College, Colombo is perhaps the biggest secondary school in Asia.

n Secondary schools must start at Grade Six and admission must be through the Grade Five scholarship exam that every child should sit.

n This will certainly provide a solution to many problems that parents are facing today.

Dr. Kannangara’s reforms also advocated that “The medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the mother tongue, but English shall be a compulsory second language.” I want to add a further recommendation to this well thought out suggestion.

That is - every child starting from the primary school, should be taught the other national language, in addition to his mother tongue. In other words, Sinhala children must learn Tamil and Tamil children must learn Sinhala.

This will have a salutary effect because no longer would there be a language divide between the two major communities in this country. Had this been done in the past, Sri Lanka would have been different today. Now that peace has dawned, we must consolidate it and make it permanent.

The President as Head of State has set an example by speaking in Tamil whenever the occasion demand and making the first ever address by a Head of State in Tamil at the UN General Assembly.

He has already instructed the Education Ministry to commence this much awaited initiative but there are practical difficulties to start immediately, the most glaring being the lack of teachers to teach Tamil to non Tamil students and Sinhala to non Sinhala students.

But as this is the need of the hour, out-of-the box thinking should prevail and make this a reality. To make the learning easy, it is my opinion that teaching of this ‘other national language’ could commence in the Year Three than at Year One.

Starting to learn a language that is not heard at home, a child might find it difficult, as getting to school for the first time itself will make a child’s world somewhat different.

As envisaged by Dr. Kannangara, teaching of English must also be made compulsory. This could, however, as suggested earlier, start from Grade Three onwards. Today, as per the direction and guidance of the President, there is a Presidential Task Force for English and IT, chaired by Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama. Its main focus is to popularize the spoken English component. This is very valid because there are many sections in the population who would do better employment-wise if they were endowed with the ability to use English comfortably and confidently.

In regard to the other subjects taught in the primary, and later the secondary school, much thought has to be given to the range of subjects and content of each of those. Over a period of time, a lot of tinkering has been done in our system of education, at the behest of individuals rather than a body of cohesive and rational thinkers.

That has resulted in rather a disjointed system that leaves the student totally unprepared for the world of work that he or she enters on completion of school education. There is much that one learns, post school. Unfortunately, we do not provide the right ingredients during school life so as to enable young school leavers to engage in continuous education. Forget about knowledge and skills, our system must be able to produce an individual who loves one’s Motherland. On this score, I wish to share some thoughts:

We must come to a national understanding, sans divisive politics, of what we expect a Sri Lankan to be. I have often thought what a true ‘Sri Lankan’ should be like. Let me elaborate on this thought.

There are certain countries and nations in the world that have distinct characteristics. I just take one such case; the Japanese. We know that Japanese are so well known for their creativity, to be productive. One cannot miss the courtesy of Japanese, wherever you meet them. Of course, they are also known as a very punctual nation.

To be continued