Tribute to exceptional educationist

Nimal Ranatunga

H L B Gomes passed away recently filling our hearts with profound sorrow. The demise of Gomes, a distinguished and a highly esteemed educationist of high caliber is an irreparable loss to the entire education field.

Though he had ascended to an insurmountable level of education with intellectuality and competence, he was decorous with extremely simple and charming ways.

Gomes maintained a regular record of perseverance, excellence and brilliance as a sagacious scholar from his childhood to the post-graduate level.

Gomes an Old-Boy of Prince of Wales, Moratuwa achieved the glorious honour of being its Principal owing to his illustrious and genius service to the school.

Recognizing the promising propensity and the unique performance of this Principal, the Education Ministry selected him for the post of Ananda College Principal, the post which was vacant at the time.

This decision came as a shock and an event of disgust and anguish for the Old Boys and parents of Prince of Wales. They were of the view that the splendour of the school which Gomes achieved would get diminished and they instantly made representations to the Ministry and got the appointment it cancelled.

After a significant tenure of service at Prince of Wales, he assumed duties at Royal College, Colombo as the prestigious principal after being selected for the post by the Ministry. Being a champion of excellent management of educational administration and infra-structure development, his principalship at Royal College was recognized as a remarkable period in the history of Royal College, Colombo. His performance bore the hallmark of erudition, experience and knowledge.

He was invited by the Colombo Regional Education Department to play a major role in one of the World Bank sponsored education projects. I too was involved in this and it was a great pleasure to work with him as he was a source of inspiration to everybody. His role in giving a new dimension to the vision, thinking and insight of the participants in motivating them to undertake the new responsibility with firm determination was exceptional.

After Gomes retired from Public Service, he was invited to be the Principal of Lyceum International School, Panadura. His tremendous reservoir of intelligence, experience managerial skill, creative ability, acumen and high moral character contributed immensely for the rapid progress of the school. He was highly concerned of inculcating our traditional spiritual and ethical values in students.

The writer is HelpAge Sri Lanka Education Division Director