Chanaka Bandarage

Bogaswewa is a rural village in Vavuniya District. During the war time, it was categorized as a ‘marginal village’.

The villagers are subsistence farmers who eke out a living from the small amount of arable land that is available. Due to the recent drought, farmers have suffered a lot.

When all Tamil schools in the surrounds  have Math teachers, Bogaswaewa Maha Vidyalaya that only has  Sinhala students has functioned without an O’L Math teacher for few years.

In the recently released O’L results, 35 of the 50 students have failed Math. Mostly, those who had the means to pay for private tuition  have passed.

Generally, for some students failing Math means failing the entire O’L exam. They have to re-sit it again.

Students who are going to sit the O’Ls next time (February 2026) also face the same dilemma. They do not have a Math teacher currently. And, there is no sign that a Math teacher will soon be appointed. This means a bulk of the next lot of students will also fail their O’Ls.

The new government came to power with much fanfare promising to fix such problems. Sadly, the government has shown inefficiency in many fronts.

Like fixing the above grassroots level problem, the NPP/JVP Ministers and MPs are showing lethargy and inefficiency  in attending to their primary duties. Some have taken up unnecessary overseas travel.

As it has only been about 8 months, let us hope that they will get their act together.

As outlined in a previous article by this writer, the government’s ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ campaign is a dead rubber. It was started off with much fanfare. True some work is still happening but that is by the tri forces personnel, police, civil defence force and government servants who go on shramadana. Most of the time, the government pays for their times. There is the lack of participation in the scheme by ordinary people.

What the government ought to have done was to mobilize it as a mass people’s movement. Unfortunately, the President did not have the ticker to call the people to rally round him.

Paul Kagame of Rwanda has done it brilliantly. In that country, last Saturday of every month is the ‘Clean Up Rwanda Day’. From the President down to the ordinary citizen, every adult person participates in the  well-planned clean-up campaign. Some say Rwanda today is not just the cleanest country in Africa but the cleanest in the world.

Like in our rural schools, there are many shortcomings in rural hospitals. For eg. there is a shortage of medicine in Vavuniya and Padaviya hospitals.

The public transport in the country is still an utter mess. The new government spends millions on Odyssey trains, the ordinary people still travel in jampacked buses and trains. The Transport Ministry has failed to put sufficient trains at the Fort railway station for office commuters during peak hours.  One could see people traveling even on footboards sometimes.

These are the problems that the government must give top priority and solve. Instead, the ministers who are in charge of important ministries seem playing antics. They seem to be paying attention more on building the party than the country.

Though Youtubers heckle him, the Deputy Agriculture Minister Namal Karunarathne’s decision to import high quality bovine semen to improve the country’s dairy herd must be commended. This is the best way to develop our livestock sector. Well done the Deputy Minister!

The multi-million-dollar dairy cow imports from Australia by the past governments was a total failure. Previous Ministers and top government officials fatten themselves from the scheme.

True some top current Ministers are inefficient and just big talkers, the good thing is that the current NPP/JVP government is corruption free. Let us hope that this trend will continue.

The release of the 309 containers by the Customs without physical examination is a major worry. It is good to discipline the errand customs officers, but what about the Ministers who have allegedly given them the order to release? If corruption is proven in this incident,  it will badly taint the JVP – a highly disciplined party.