Intelligentsia beholden to nation - Bandula Gunawardena

Sabaragamua group corr

The intelligentsia benefited from free education are vested with the responsibility of rebuilding the country through knowledge based education enunciated by the Mahinda Chinthana Future Vision, said Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena.

Minister Bandula Gunawardena

Addressing the annual prize day meeting of the Kegalle St Joseph's Balika Vidyalaya at the college hall recently, Minister Gunawardena said a network of 1,000 Mahindodaya schools was being set up throughout the country with physical and human resources to ensure equal distribution of resources among schools.

Under this programme, nearly Rs 65 million would be allocated to each school.

He said the takeover of private schools by the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government was the first stage or crossroad of free education with the setting up of Madya Maha Vidyalayas. Now, it was high time for a third stage or crossroad in the education field.

Everything in the world was changing. So, education too needed to undergo a change or transformation, he said.

Minister Gunawardena said "At the time we attended university, we did not see a thing called the computer.

"But in most countries today, children carry a laptop to school as an educational tool. Whether we like it or not, computer literary in Sri Lanka has to reach 75 percent by 2016. If not, we will find it difficult to have transactions with the outside world."

He said the government had the right to teach children in English only from the fifth grade, because educationists held the view that children should be taught in the mother tongue. But today, the people with means educate their children in English from their initial stages.

The government had no right to prevent children from sitting international examinations in English. Thousands of children from well-to-do-families thereafter follow a diploma or degree course at a foreign university.

"Children following education locally study for two years in A/L classes after passing the O/Ls and languish for three years awaiting results amidst conflicting arguments and by the time they get ready to enter universities, the children of well-to-do families have returned home after obtaining a foreign degree.

When there is such a great anomaly in Education, the government had a duty and responsibility to provide education facilities for other children too, he said.

"When a Mahindodaya school is set up, two science graduate teachers will be provided for the science laboratory and two English graduate teachers will be assigned to the language laboratory".

Minister Gunawardena who said that he appreciated skills displayed by the students of Kegalle St Josephs Balika Vidyalaya added that when the school was subjected to a landslide recently, he visited the school incognito to investigate the damage.

He hoped to submit a cabinet memorandum for the development of the school after discussion with the Disaster Management Minister, and other ministers in the district, he said.

Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya also spoke.