Creating readymade dropouts and winners

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

“When you know what you are getting out at the other end, it is very easy for you to control that process and the product. But the education is a different process. When you have human beings thinking of all kinds of different ways, doing their own things, then you cannot control the end product.”

If you take the education stream in Sri Lanka we have the dropouts and the winners. But the question is are we creating readymade dropouts and winners? Daily News spoke to Senior Lecture of Mathematics, University of Colombo, Dr.Thilan.U Hewage.

If you take the Advanced Level (A/L) Examination, about 2,25,000 students sit for the exam and about 1,40,00 get qualified for University admission. However only about 22,000 get admitted to the state Universities. The big question is should there be a separate exam for University entrance?

“What happens is even if we have a separate exam to university entrance, we will still have the same problem because we have limited capacity. So what happens is that due to the limited capacity, the cut- off marks go up every year. The number of students taking their A/Levels goes up every year. So this is a big crisis. I do not think having a separate exam will solve the problem because we have the same number of seats in the universities,” said Hewage.

Dr.Hewage insisted that the solution would be to increase the number of universities and other institutes thereby increasing the level of accommodation that we can provide. We can have other institutions which provide not necessarily the degrees but diplomas or other professional qualifications. Everybody does not require a degree. The job market is such that people can thrive without degrees. The economy requires all sorts of talents and technically qualified people. The education system should have the capacity to cater to all these needs.

“On the other hand when we have an exam like the A/Levels, it does not mean that we have to provide accommodation f or everyone who sits the exam. The exam is there to select the better people for higher education. The other people will have to find other avenues. There are people who are good enough but they don’t get a chance. That is where the problem is. We have to solve that problem. Maybe A/L should be structured differently; maybe you can include more subjects and more streams so that students have more choices in terms of subjects. But with that another problem comes up. The more streams you add, you have to ensure that those strems have a logical end and students can benefit from those streams.”

Hewage stated that it is absolutely necessary to increase the university facilities. He stated that we also have to provide different streams. It is necessary to provide avenues other than just the degree where people can get professional qualifications and get into the job market and find a way of living. So we should have a combination of all these things. You cannot solve this problem looking at it as an A/Levels problem. It is a general problem of the whole education system

“According to the authorities when a child is four to five years of age they should be in school. We force the parents saying that if the child is not going to school they have to answer to the authorities.

The authorities have decided that the children should be herded into so called schools and educational institutions. And then we say that they have to go through 13-14 years of this programme that the authorities have designed. From time to time they have changes but there is a certain procedure which says that if you enter at five years of age and you get out when you are 18, then we are ready to take you into our job market. We have made you into a certain thing which can be used. This is the idea of the education process. And if anyone tries to go out of that procedure he or she will be regarded as a misfit.

The main assumption here is that as long as you herd everyone through this system you know exactly what you are getting out at the other end. And when you know what you are getting out at the other end it is very easy for you to control that process and the product. However, education is a different process. When you have human beings thinking of all kinds of different ways, doing their own things, then you cannot control the end product.”

Calling this the biggest illusion, Hewage argued that somewhere down the road you have to drop some of these people out of the process, because you cannot push everybody into a particular system. “There should be meaningful opportunities for them to select different paths. You cannot have an expressway without exits.”

To solve these problems, you have to look at this process as one whole thing. “Education should be where people can excel in whatever they are good at. They have to be able to first find out what they are good at. And once they find that out, they can excel in that. That should be the education.”