Empowering people in rural communities
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha, MP
The concerns raised at the last set of Divisional Secretariat
Reconciliation Committees I facilitated this week in Mullaitivu and
Vavuniya, after a long hiatus given an excess of travel in March, were
both reassuring and upsetting. This last was because, though problems
aplenty were raised, there was appreciation both of what had been done,
and the commitment of the government to do more. They were upsetting
because in so many simple areas government is simply not acting, in part
because government structures are so archaic that they cannot respond
swiftly to modern needs.
I do not refer to subjects such as water and electricity and roads,
because there is a clear understanding that much has been done, and the
rest is planned. The people I was amongst recognized the great strides
that had been taken, and that it was impossible to do everything at
once. Though sometimes it might help to make clear why there are
priorities, and what the timelines are for what cannot be done straight
away, I believe there is general satisfaction with the infrastructure
development programme.
Scholarship exam
I will discuss the various issues raised at the meetings later, but
here I will look simply at one area where we are really serving the
people of the North, and I suspect rural children in general, badly. I
refer to education, where there is widespread appreciation of the
schools that have been constructed, and the fact that uniforms and books
are supplied well on time. However the lack of teachers is indeed
appalling, and also the organizational structure that permits several
tiny schools without sufficient teachers to continue to operate.
Unfortunately a dogmatic approach to such problems means that there is
no concern about education itself, as opposed to a sausage machine that
consumes funds without purpose.
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Training
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The gravity of the problem became clear in the comment of a
headmaster who runs a school with 25 students and two teachers. I had
suggested to the Department officials that they rationalize, making sure
that transport is provided to another school for students at any school
which needs to be closed because it is not really providing a decent
education. The headmaster, ignoring what I said, claimed that the
closure of the school would mean that 25 children would be deprived of
their education. When I questioned him further, as to what he actually
did, he said he taught Year Five, which had just one student in it. Last
year there had been three, none of whom had passed the scholarship exam.
Remote areas
The same was true in two other schools, one of which had only 15
students. Of course in some cases I was told that there was no school
nearby, and I accept that areas from which transport to other schools is
difficult should retain what they have. But I noticed at least a couple
of tiny schools within a few kilometers of each other, and I could not
understand the failure to rationalize. Incidentally the school with 25
students had no extra-curricular activities, whereas another primary
school with 80 had a headmaster who had started societies for additional
value for his students.
The problem is, with responsibility for education lying far away,
there is simply no monitoring of the situation. This applies too to the
appalling lack of teachers since, as I was told everywhere, teachers
from better endowed areas seek transfers the moment they are appointed.
As I have noted before, the idea of the President, enunciated in his
2005 budget speech and reiterated since, raised in an adjournment motion
by one of our brighter young MPs who serves a rural area, has been
completely ignored by the Ministry, and by Provincial Ministries.
I think this is inevitable when there is no actual experience of what
is going on in remote areas. Long ago, one of the principal reasons for
my support for devolution was not to encourage autonomous units, but
rather to promote the principal of subsidiarity, which means that
decisions should be made by the smallest possible units affected by such
decisions. For this reason I was initially of the view that the unit of
devolution should be the District, and for some time the Liberal Party
supported this possibility though later it decided to go with the
Province.
Monitoring committee meetings
Though I thought this would not be productive, I went along with the
decision, and I believe that it would make no sense now to revisit that
question. There are certain matters, connected with economic and social
and employment issues in particular, that will benefit from provincial
consultation and perspectives. But having spent much time now in
Divisional Secretariats, and heard the problems of Grama Niladharis and
Rural Development Society representatives, I feel that, far from the
District making sense, we need to think of empowering Divisional
Secretariats with regard to many more matters.
Educational administration for instance, transport facilities,
primary health care, water supply and drainage, waste management, child
protection and development, all need a close and careful eye, with
sympathetic attention to the needs of the local population. These should
be included in a simple and straightforward job description for the
Pradeshiya Sabha chairman, whose area of responsibility should be
co-terminous with that of the Divisional Secretary.
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More
education facilities for Northern children |
I would myself go further, and suggest that, instead of the current
wasteful system whereby elections are held on a large scale for several
members, at vast expense, we should simply have one elected Chief
Executive with full executive authority, with a short term of office
(perhaps three years) subject to monitoring by Audit and other
Committees.
I have been told indeed by the few Liberal Party Pradeshiya Sabha
members we have that all authority is concentrated in the chairman, and
the members have hardly any responsibilities except to support the
budget. This is particularly important given the rivalries that have
built up amongst government politicians, and indeed the Liberal Party
actually props up the Chair in the area in question, since the rest of
her party have no high opinion of her.
Horror stories
In such a context it would make sense to look instead for elders and
respected personalities, who should only have to attend weekly
monitoring committee meetings and who would not receive any payment
except an allowance for attendance. There should be a limited number of
members of such Committees, elected by single transferable vote to
ensure wide representation. STV would also help with the increasingly
serious problem of women not running to any appreciable degree for such
positions.
I know these are radical ideas, but I believe we need to think
radically if we are actually to deliver to the majority of our people
who are comparatively deprived the services government must give them.
This is not now happening, and there are no plans either in Colombo or
in Provincial Capitals to address these issues soon. I will refer in a
detailed discussion of the meetings to some of the horror stories I
heard, which result not from deliberate neglect, but simply from a
system that is no longer accountable. I believe we must address such
problems and, if my solution is unacceptable, I hope there will be
suggestions of practical alternatives.
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