Schools sans principals

The shocking disclosure by Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena that 105 National schools in the country had been functioning without permanent principals all these years should awaken our authorities on the direction in which the country's education sector is heading for.

Mind you these are national schools of which there are 340 in all. What fate the rest of the schools are consigned to is anybody's guess. This is more so considering that a majority of these schools lack basic facilities and are without teachers for important subjects such as Maths and English. This also at a time when every effort is being made to upgrade and develop the country's education system to face upto the modern day demands and challenges and when the budgetary allocation for education is second only to Defence.

No doubt this absence of a permanent principal in almost one third of our national schools was reflected in the recent horrendous results at the GCE O-Ls with an unprecedented number of students failing in all subjects. Needless to say having a school without a proper principal is like a ship without a captain. Like the latter it is the principal who direct the destiny of the school he or she is in charge. Without the guiding hand of the principal the school is bound to suffer with such traits as indiscipline and unpunctuality of both students and teachers becoming the norm reflecting in the academic results of the school as well as its general standard.

Minister Gunawardena says his Ministry will take immediate action to recruit new qualified principals. In the meantime hopefully no major damage has been caused to these schools from the point of view of the students' education due to the absence of principals at these schools. Ditto for discipline and moral conduct which too would have suffered sans the principal to steer the ship and as the guiding light.

The Minister did not identify the schools which had been functioning without a permanent principal but without doubt these have to be those schools deemed as underprivileged schools situated in the outstations. Therefore it is safe to assume that the victims were those children who hailed from poor underprivileged backgrounds who had to pay the price for the gross negligence and laid back attitude of our guiding lights in the education sector whose duty and obligation is to look into and remedy such lapses.

This certainly is an indictment on those in the top echelons of the Ministry. How can principals be appointed willy nilly without undergoing the necessary training? The Minister should call for an inquiry to find found out if any of his officials in the Ministry had been remiss in failing to spotlight such a lacuna in our national schools. Who allowed this state of affair go unchecked?

We don't have to stress the point that a child's entire future rests on the education he receives at school. More so at a time President Rajapaksa has declared education as a tool for the advancement of the country. This necessitates a solid basis beginning from the school where the child's initial formation takes place.

Hence the need to strengthen the school in order to create this foundation. How could this take place when schools don't have principals? It is therefore up to the authorities to develop all resources to realize the full potential of every individual. This necessarily presupposes a sound education at every level. For this we need to develop and upgrade the school system providing them with all the resources and facilities without discrimination. Most of all providing them with the required teaching staff and principals to guide them and the affairs of the school.

Hopefully this matter would be remedied at the earliest and the schools given their permanent principals.

The Minister also said he has taken steps to fill all teacher vacancies in national schools. He should also ensure such recruits meet with the required standards. The remedy naturally will be to recruit unemployed graduates to teaching posts. While this step cannot be faulted it need not be emphasized that not all such graduates may be suitable for the job. The teaching profession calls for special aptitudes and characteristics and temperaments. Therefore recruiting graduates as teachers should be done with care. We say this because teaching is more than just a profession. It is a noble profession that involves not only imparting knowledge but also moulding the character of our future generation. Therefore schools should not serve as dumping grounds for unemployed graduates some of whom are infused with unorthodox and radical views that could do harm to their charges.