{"id":109405,"date":"2020-12-06T16:55:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T23:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109405"},"modified":"2020-12-06T16:55:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T23:55:05","slug":"unrest-in-mahara-prison-and-value-education-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/06\/unrest-in-mahara-prison-and-value-education-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"UNREST IN MAHARA PRISON AND VALUE EDUCATION IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

After\nthe LTTE war, the most internationally noted incident in Sri Lanka was the\nunrest in Mahara Prison, and pictures of the incident have been viewed globally\nthrough social media. The factors that contributed to unrest seem to be\ncontradicted and ordinary people are confused by a range of information\nprovided by the authority, government, analysts, opposition politicians, media,\nand many others. Some people attempted to use the case to animadversion the\ngovernment and to disgrace the government using the points that may use for the\ninternationalization of the issue.  Not\nonly in Sri Lanka but also many countries have prison management related issues,\nand no country is immune to the problem that should be critically looked by\npolicymakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\na ratio, the involvement of people in the case in Sri Lanka is less than 0.001%,\nand many people who observed the incident attempted to express concern saying they\nwere not involved in, and the morally significant question is, can people wash\nhands or deviate from the issue purely considering the point that they have no\nindividual or collective involvement? \nThe reporting system focused to point out to give a message that\nprisoners involved in the unrest were narcotic dealers or consumers, and when\npeople are associated with narcotic, good people also could become violent and involve\nanti-social behavior that is applied all over the world and the law and order\nhave failed to control it. Policymakers of the country need to think about the\nissue and look to broader perspectives or angles to change the behavior of\npeople. Attitudes of people contribute to make the world to construct or\ndestroy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\ndeeply analyzes the incident, it invites policymakers to open eyes on deeply\nrooted issues in the country that are neglected by responsible\nauthorities.  Before the presidential\nelection in 2019, people demanded was to take firm action to eliminate narcotic\nand the underworld from Sri Lanka\u2019s soil, and Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has taken\nfirm actions to eliminate drugs and the underworld. Illicit drug dealing and\nthe activities of the underworld are all over the world and many governments\nspend trillions of dollars to control the issue, however, despite large\nspending illicit drug production, distribution, and underworld activities are\noperating in the world.  Individually, no\ncountry can deal with the issue, and changing the attitude of people may be an\neffective way of control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economically,\nillicit drugs and the underworld activities in Sri Lanka have created a black\neconomy that harm, the day-to-day life of poor people, increasing inflation,\nshortage of essential items, misuse of foreign exchange, and many others.\nAccording disclosed evidence, drug dealers disregard foreign exchange\nregulations of the country and use illegal methods to transfer money for the\npayments of narcotic and it seems a legally acceptable way of transferring\nmoney.  The actual economic value of\nillicit drug dealing and underworld activities has not been estimated, and the\nimpact of such activities on peace-loving people is unknown. Few individuals\nhave been benefited from these drugs, underworld activities, and organized\ncrimes, and no doubt that the liberalized economic policies and the wars of\nterrorists (LTTE and Islamists) have contributed to promoting anti-social and\ncorrupt behaviours in the country. Why people engage in this anti-social\nbehaviour when they have a simple way to go forward? Some left politicians\ntalked about the issue in the parliament and attempted to attract public attention\nto the incident, however, it showed that the public has no sympathy toward\nanti-social behavior because people have suffered enough from drug dealers,\nconsumers, underworld activists, and the environment created by these group of\npeople. In Sri Lanka, many people talk about religions and the unrest of the Mahara\nPrison shows that religions are not working in society and sometimes, it is\neasier to assume that religions are working like opium that is not working to\nchange the attitude of people in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe LTTE war, many social analysts assumed that the possibility of social\nunrest or expanding anti-social activities in the country after ending the war\nbecause the war had strings from outside and manipulators of the war associated\nwith anti-social behavior.  Since the\nearly 1990s, the behavior of young people has been focused to make money by\nwhatever strategies using and liberal rules of movements in many countries\nmotivated young people to make money engage in whatever business. The behavior\nof young people pressured parents, and political and economic policymakers have\nnot been stressed by the potential social issues that would cost a massive\nvolume of government funds to deal with the issue.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmajor bestowal for the issue was the education policy of the country that\ncontinuously pursued isolation of young generation in society and promoting\nself-centred attitudes, disregarding the promoting and be responsible for\nissues in society. Young men who are being attended in the education system\nmust have a good understanding to apply values in the life. It is not like\nreligious preaching but training to apply values entire life and understand the\nimpact of actions to society. Education policy in Sri Lanka promoted\nindividualism, and this selfish policy got the involvement of parents in\neducation of kids than giving an opportunity to learn about the society by kids\nunderstanding causes and effect of day-to-day practice of society. Despite the\nlearning role giving to kids, parents are involved in education and competitive\nprocess of learning, and in this way, kids are not learning or gaining the\nvalues from education.  The major role of\neducation is supposed to be performed by schools to create a value laden\nsociety, however, the role is pushed to private tuition providers and parents,\nand the significant involvement of parents than kids to really take part in\neducation. Education in Sri Lanka has not focused students to analytically or\npositively think about the society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsystem of competitive examination such G.C.E. (Ordinary Level) and G.C.E\n(Advanced Level) and Scholarship examinations forced parents to involve more\nthan motivating students to engage in productive education and the government\nspent a large sum of funds for the competitive testing ignoring reforms\nrequired in education. The education system should focus to make creative and\nvalue respected society.  The current\neducation system is running out of the requirements. Academics involved in\neducation reforms were products of the weak system, and had no knowledge,\nskills, and experience to change the system to promote a productive society,\nand positive thinkers and to apply social values and heavy involvement of\nparents has turned education to promote make money rather than to make\nresponsible members in society.  In such\na background, creating people involve in narcotic business is not strange, and\nit is the negative impact of current education system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\narticles in Sunday newspapers analysed the Mahara Prison incident or unrest of\nprisoners, but nobody focused that the declining of value education in society\nsupported to create the problem, and declining or ignoring value education in\nschools has massively contributed to the problem.  The education system in Sri Lanka promotes\nhate and disregard values in the efforts of making money.  Why policymakers of education think about\nthis massive issue while promoting knowledge and skills through education?     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS After the LTTE war, the most internationally noted incident in Sri Lanka was the unrest in Mahara Prison, and pictures of the incident have been viewed globally through social media. The factors that contributed to unrest seem to be contradicted and ordinary people are confused by a range of information provided by […]<\/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-109405","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\/109405","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=109405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}