‘Colombo is not Sri Lanka’

The column ‘Colombo is not Sri Lanka’ (Daily News, 23/9/11) is inspiring news and a great credit to the government for achieving this balanced education system in the country as 19 out of 20 students who were ranked 1 to 20 are from schools outside of Colombo.

It is, however, necessary to be mindful of the fact that Dr C.W.W. Kannangara, who was born in Randombe, Ambalangoda, adjoining my village Hikkaduwa, was the first Education Minister in the State Council of Ceylon who, in 1940, introduced free education up to university that benefitted underprivileged children in rural areas of the country and also established a scheme of Central Schools to set up one in each electorate to provide high quality secondary education modelled on Royal College, Colombo.

Subsequent governments expanded the system, especially the current government, by establishing technical colleges and universities throughout the country.

I was a product before this era though I was fortunate enough to receive my education in English from Year Three, undergoing financial hardships and lack of facilities as schools that adopted English as the medium of instruction levied fees.

Even the University of Peradeniya was established in 1948 after I passed the Senior School Certificate (English medium) examination in 1943 from the Dodanduwa Buddhist Mixed School, a fee-levying school, with a distinction in History and good grades in English Literature, Sinhala and Rural Science.

As a persevering student, I was determined to earn a BA Honours degree in History though there were no facilities to do so except through external examinations conducted by the University of London. I passed the GCE (Advanced Level) examination in Economics, English Economic History, British Constitution, Indian History, Pali and Sinhala, and later switched on to Philosophy and finally earned the BA Honours degree in Philosophy from the London University.

Pursuing higher studies at the time was only through London examinations which unfortunately underwent a roller coaster approach according to the whims and fancies of the successive governments but Prime Ministers, Ministers and the wealthy people were able to send their sons and daughters abroad for higher studies denied to poor students.

It was after migrating to Australia in 1975 as a professional social worker that I was able to achieve my childhood ambition to get on to the highest step of the ladder of academic education by achieving a PhD degree in creative writing.

I hope and pray the present trend in education gets even a better and more energetic boost from the government so that children in villages living far away from Colombo could one day feel that after all ‘Colombo is not Sri Lanka.’

- Dr. Mathu H. Liyanage