{"id":107764,"date":"2020-10-19T16:52:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T23:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107764"},"modified":"2020-10-19T16:52:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T23:52:52","slug":"wasting-funds-for-the-scholarship-examination-and-the-requirement-of-spending-funds-for-the-improvement-of-teacher-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/19\/wasting-funds-for-the-scholarship-examination-and-the-requirement-of-spending-funds-for-the-improvement-of-teacher-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"WASTING FUNDS FOR THE SCHOLARSHIP EXAMINATION AND THE REQUIREMENT OF SPENDING FUNDS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHER QUALITY"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The\nscholarship examination has become a stressful test for parents, teachers,\nstudents, and the government.  Many\npeople in the country say it is an examination of parents as the interest of\nparents is greater than students take the test. Generally, the test may be a\nmethod of determination of the competitive quality of school administrators,\nteachers, and students. Has the test been used to evaluate the human rights of\npeople, and to correct the issue in the country to giving justice to poor\npeople? When I look at the conducting of the scholarship examination various\npoints of view come to my mind. The examination has been conducting since the\n1950s, however, education policy-makers have not learned vital lessons that are\nrelated to the human rights of rural people, and the changing requirement of\neducation distribution of the country to give justice to rural people.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nindirect acceptance of the government that education distribution should be\nequal and the right of gaining good education is only to students selected for\nthe test that is harmful to ensuring the human rights of the country.   Education distribution in a country may have\ninherent problems that are not the responsibility of education providers. Not\nany country in the world has an acceptance that good education should be\nprovided only to learners, who are selected from a test. (the idea may be a\ncolonial inheritance).  The education\npolicy is set within a line that education should be provided to all learners\nwithout any differences or discrimination. For example, in developed nations\nsuch as Australia, the USA, and Canada, all students without any difference,\nsubject content, method of teaching, and assessment of students are accommodated\nequally, despite many issues that exist relating to resource availability and\nothers. The evidence in Sri Lanka shows that the government of Sri Lanka\nbreaches human rights by providing education to chosen students from a test and\ntransferring selected students to so-called big schools in the urban area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education\nregards as a human right and it is a right like breathing to each person. I\nunderstood from the experience in this year students that learners from privileged\nclasses who are attending Big schools also participated in the scholarship exam\nto deplete the opportunity of poor students in rural and small schools in urban\nareas.  For example, a media person in\nSri Lanka stated that he transferred the school from Panadura Sumangala College\nto Royal College through a tactic of the Scholarship examination.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nSri Lanka, the human right, the right to gain education is distributed by the\ngovernment in an unreasonable way that is discriminating against the poor in\nthe country. In this sense, it seems that the scholarship examination widely\nuses to give partial justice for a long period from the day of beginning the\nscholarship examination.  The government\nspent a large sum of funds for the administration of the examination. Parents\nspent more money on the preparation of kids for the scholarship examination\nattending outside tuition classes.  Such\na huge volume of funds could have been channeled to give justice to all rural\npeople if the government spent funds to improve the quality of rural schools.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nsuch a test is required to select students for better schools if education is a\nfundamental right of people, in other words, this test is conducted Island-wide\nto ensure that human rights (gaining equal education) of all students and\nstudents passed from the scholarship examination are the right people to enjoy\nhuman rights. Many developed countries use scholarship examinations in private\nschools to wave school fee payments for poor kids. In Australia, lower-income\nearning parents are given an allowance for education spending.   From this point of view on education\ndistribution, rural people have been violated the right to gain a good\neducation and this human right is distributed only for a particular group of\npeople (students those who passed the examination). The serious question to be\nasked is those who failed from the scholarship examination have no right to\nenjoy human rights (right to gain quality education) that are considered as a\nfundamental bedrock without discriminating anyone in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before\nthe 20th<\/sup> century, the scholarship exam may have contributed to the\nimprovement of education quality of kids of lower-income earning parents,\nhowever, the situation has been changed by the shift of politics in the country\nas the attraction of votes to political parties became a critical factor that\ndepending on the level of spending for rural schools. The governments elected\nin the 20th<\/sup> century understood the critical factor that was\ndetermined to spend more money on rural schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nis the main purpose of the scholarship examination and when direct the question\nto stakeholders of education many of them answer that it is supported to find a\nnational school for poor rural kids?  The\nanswer raises several questions. Are existing schools in the rural area not\nnational schools or they are lower graded schools? What are the reasons to\ncreate a difference between national schools and rural schools? Did\npolicymakers concentrate on issues and attempt to eliminate differences?  The general purpose of an examination is the\nclassification of participants and on what criteria the participants of the\nscholarship examination used is not crystal clear to stakeholders, if anyone\nasks a question from a stakeholder, the obvious answer to finding a better\nschool for participants of the examination. \nThe critical disclosure from the answer is the school currently\nattending is not a good school and why such a conclusion that cannot be\ninterpreted by stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\napprehensions have been contributed to lower quality in rural schools in Sri\nLanka since the beginning of free education. The major reason contributed is\nthe quality of educators and the policymakers have not bothered the issue.  Many countries have attempted to improve\nteacher quality using various criteria and strategies. Since the 1930s the\nmajor strategy for improving teacher quality has been confirmed by training\nteachers from time to time.  Teaching\nquality means improvement of planning and organizing skills of teachers and\nlater presentation skills also took into consideration. By the teacher training\nprograms (Certificate programs, B.Ed programs, Diploma programs, and\npostgraduate programs), educating, training, and testing teacher quality were\nconcentrated not in required level and the techniques used by teacher educators\nremained in a limited area because teacher education institutions (Training\nColleges and universities) were in a difficult situation to afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nimprovement of the quality of a teacher could be improved by limiting learners\nto 20 students in a class.  This type of\nclass teacher can maintain a closer relationship with students and make\nindividual attention to students according to development needs.  While this situation is obvious from the\npractical experience in Sri Lanka spending a large sum of money on the\nscholarship examination is wasting resources and discriminating against the\nhuman rights of rural students in so-called lower-grade schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nobserved that teaching in schools is a stressful job for educators in the\nregional area and the stress seems negatively impacts the ability to\nrole-playing teachers and the result too displays the lowering of the quality\nof service. The Minister of Education, Prof. G.L Peiris has admitted with\njournalists that the majority of graduates in the teaching profession do not\nhave professional qualification in teaching (Sunday Observer, 18.10.2020). This\nhas been a significant issue in teacher quality in schools and the government\npolicymakers have not made bull\u2019s eye on this matter and developed policy\naction to the improvement of teacher quality and training them while they are\nperforming the work role in regional schools. The fund wasting for the\nscholarship examination could be diverted to the teacher quality improvement.\nGraduate teachers may have better content knowledge in teaching subjects, but\nthey are lacking planning, organizing, presentation, and assessing knowledge\nand skills.  Many graduate teachers have\nno understanding of what is a lesson plan, how to organize and present a lesson\nto achieve outcomes of the curriculum document, and how to present a lesson in\nthe classroom consistent with the lesson plan to achieve outcomes of the\nlesson. Lesson evaluation after the presentation and expressing the outcomes\nthat should be achieved by students while learning in the classroom doesn\u2019t\nwrite on the board by teachers at the beginning of a lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment of Sri Lanka needs to spend a large sum of funds for the improvement\nof teacher quality. Many parents spend a large sum of money on tuition as the\nrole of the teacher in rural schools appear to be not playing up to the\nrequired level, and policymakers can tremendously improve the quality of\neducation in rural schools not promoting to change the schools by the\nscholarship examination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nparents in rural schools pursue changing schools because English skills\n(Reading, writing, and speaking) of students in rural skills remain at a lower\nlevel. Teachers in rural schools have not trained to provide English skills to\nrural kids in rural schools.  If the\ngovernment spends more money for this purpose the current situation could be\nchanged.                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS The scholarship examination has become a stressful test for parents, teachers, students, and the government.  Many people in the country say it is an examination of parents as the interest of parents is greater than students take the test. Generally, the test may be a method of determination of the competitive quality […]<\/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-107764","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\/107764","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=107764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}