{"id":107484,"date":"2020-10-11T17:33:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T00:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107484"},"modified":"2020-10-11T17:33:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T00:33:12","slug":"education-reforms-and-inter-religious-and-ethnic-reconciliation-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/11\/education-reforms-and-inter-religious-and-ethnic-reconciliation-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"EDUCATION REFORMS AND INTER-RELIGIOUS AND ETHNIC RECONCILIATION IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Mahinda\nRajapaksa, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, has recently made a public\nstatement that the establishment of deviated schools for kids in different\nreligious and ethnic groups was a major reason to deflect society according to\nreligions and ethnic groups.  The policy\ncreated many issues in the process of building a united country and one nation.\nIn the past, this issue was not reflected in society as people believed that\nsociety would be continued in the future without dynamism in attitudes and\nmodernization has shown that society reflects it is an unstable condition as\nLord Buddha said.  This was reminded by\nMr.J.R.Jeyawarddane when Mr. Gamini Jayasuriya left from politics in 1978.\nThere is no doubt that the establishment of schools for kids in various\nreligions, and social groups were the major reason for the division of society,\nthe expression of Mr. Rajapaksa was supported by Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga.  It is regret to note that religious leaders\nand ethnic leaders did not express their supports to eliminate divisive schools\nin the country and this is politics in society (notional differences).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nuniting effort of people as one nation in the country for a long time has been\nnegatively motivated by a divided school system promoting notional differences\nin society, and many political, religious leaders have been making public speeches,\nand talking without practical actions to eliminate the problem. The approach in\nmodern society is quite different from the past and if King Dutugemunu is in\ntoday society he would have negotiated with Elara than conducting a\nblood-letting war to defeat the enemy The prime minister\u2019s view reflected a\nmajor barrier to policy development for the reconciliation of society, and he\nshould task the idea as a conceptual base of the new government to make\neducation reforms to eliminate divided schools to productively use all\ncitizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe reign of Kings and Queens, the establishment of schools for different\ngroups was not either permitted or actively worked in society. When critically\nevaluates the education distribution policy in the society of the reign of\nKings and Queens the deviation of society was not an issue because the order of\nthe King or Queen or the will of the King or Queen was the law.  Deviated schools was not an implicated issue\nas the knowledge, skills, and personal quality was not rated in terms of the\nownership of the school at that time. During the LTTE war-time, war-hero were\nnot recruited from specific schools and people educated in all schools\ncontributed to defeat the separatist war.   \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka had a system of educating kids for centuries and many historians\nexpressed that universities for educating a variety of subjects were in the Anuradhapura\nera.  The wide distribution of education\nbegan with the religious base was promoted by Portuguese and in response to\nPortuguese policy all ethnic and religious groups, established schools for\ntheir groups, and this division has been expanded until today. The policy of\nnationalizing aids-granted schools in 1962 had not come to standstill the\ndeviation of society by various schools for religions and ethnic groups,\ndeviated schools. National education policy for all was not developed and many\npeople educated in rural schools were insulted in society. No government had a\npulse to change the system, many religious leaders especially, Catholic Church,\nAnglican Church, and the Methodist church in the country pressed the UNP\ngovernment in 1965 to maintain Christian Colleges to the urban rich class and\nthe same actions were followed by other religious groups in the country.  The reaction of Christian churches followed\nby other religious administrators appeared like openly fueling to small fire\nagainst the teaching of Jesus Christ and the policy initiation of the Second\nVatican Council.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\ntaking the idea of reconciliation the germ (dividing society by education in\nschools specified to various religious and ethnic groups), was allowed to\nspread, and today Sri Lanka has a divided society on an ethnic and religious\nbasis. Later, the education policy promoted certain religious and ethnic\nschools for the rich, and the quality of education destroyed in the country. I\nhad personal experience of how difficult to admit a kid to urban schools, and I\nwas demanded by Catholic school principals in Colombo, a large sum of money as\na bribe to school to admit a kid and finally, I have chosen to migrate overseas\nto get away from the problem and in overseas I haven\u2019t had any problem\nadmitting my kids to the Catholic schools, which are more advanced in education\nlevel and quality than in Catholic Schools in Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nother barrier to national unity is being regarded as past pupil associations\nthat worked with school administrators to gain bribe and to bribes to school\nadministrators who work against national reconciliation.  It shows that past pupil associations in the\ncountry have created problems for national reconciliation and many\nadministration activities of the country in Colombo and other urban towns\nbringing unnecessary people and vehicles (Human and Motor traffic) wasting\nfunds of the country that could be spent for regional development.  The additional traffic could remove from\nColombo and it would bring justice to poor people in Colombo and change the\nappearance of roads in Colombo like in developed countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmajor issue in Sri Lanka is associated with education distribution and the\nproblem cannot eliminate overnight and the government needs to work with\nrelevant groups.  Education is a\nqualitative factor and it has no value from where it gained and knowledge,\nskills, and quality are unique factors irrespective of where they are gained.\nThe education reforms in the country need to consider vital factors that have\nuniversal significance to people.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, has recently made a public statement that the establishment of deviated schools for kids in different religious and ethnic groups was a major reason to deflect society according to religions and ethnic groups.  The policy created many issues in the process of building a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}