{"id":96478,"date":"2019-12-16T18:04:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T01:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96478"},"modified":"2019-12-16T18:04:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T01:04:02","slug":"education-reforms-essential-to-sri-lanka-part-2-vertical-and-horizontal-models-of-distribution-and-social-justice-in-providing-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/16\/education-reforms-essential-to-sri-lanka-part-2-vertical-and-horizontal-models-of-distribution-and-social-justice-in-providing-education\/","title":{"rendered":"EDUCATION REFORMS ESSENTIAL TO SRI LANKA (PART 2)-VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL MODELS OF DISTRIBUTION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN PROVIDING EDUCATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Part\none of this article focused on a basic requirement a Horizontal Model for\nEducation Distribution in the country for education reforms.  The structure for the model for a million\npopulation irrespective of where the population has networked or distributed,\nwhether in rural or urban area, the proposed model designed to apply in entire\ncountry. It is a horizontal distribution of education irrespectively whether\npopulation distributed in rural or urban areas or in wealthy suburbs or in poor\npeople\u2019s ghettos. Recent television programs in Sri Lanka disclosed that\nalthough the department of education has been operating in the country since\nState Council era, finding a school for kids has become the most difficult task\nto parent.  They should waste time and\nmoney for finding a school for kids despite the education considers a\nfundamental right of human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmajor reason for this predicament seems that distributing more resources for\nurban schools in the process of education distribution and neglecting rural and\nsemi urban areas.  Current education\nprovision is a vertical distribution which means less than one million\npopulation in certain areas, many schools have established and they are based\non nationality or religion or wealth, more than the requirement of population\nwhile large volume of population in outer Colombo and suburbs have less schools\nwith less resources. A vertical distribution can be defined as giving more\nschools and resources to small area distributing upward. This situation could\nbe eliminated only if the distribution of education makes horizontally, which\nforces the government to distribute schools and more resources to larger areas\nin rural Sri Lanka. Vertical distribution of education in the country is based\non colonial attitudes, which has created many issues in education provision to\nthe community and its principle seems against social justice. However, recent\nstatement to press by Mr. Dallas Alahapperuma and Mr. Ramesh Pathirana clearly\nstated that national schools will be increased to 1000 from current 374, which\nmeans the acceptance of a horizontal model of education distribution. It is the\nsocial justice expected by people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nexample, if it gets Kotahena or Bambabalapitity or Madadana or Kollupitiya or\nBorella area, many schools have located in such areas for more than needed to\nthe population actually living in the area whilst it is observable that no\nschools for kids in rural and semi-urban areas to gain education confirming to\nsocial justice.  Locating too many\nschools to urban areas have also created problems such as daily movement of\npeople in urban towns (Including Colombo), where generate motor and human\ntraffic issues and daily movement of too many people incur cost to the\ngovernment demanding more controls and facilities. The system incurs more\nexpenses to Individuals expenses such as bus fee, pocket money for kids,\naccompanying persons with kids and many other expenses. It seems that people\ndaily move from outer suburbs to Colombo metro area for schooling purpose than\nproductive or trading purposes. Education must be a service that provides in\nresidential area. It cannot not justify moving from far away to gain\neducational services and kids have additional pressure to concentrate on\nactivities that are not related education. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nobserved that some parent daily sends kids from Dankotuwa to Bambalapitiya for\nschooling, when I ask why it is happening, parent replied the reason to educate\nEnglish, kids send far away.  English is\na communication media like other languages in the world whether it leans in\nDankotuwa or in Bambalapitiya it shouldn\u2019t reflect a difference.  There may be a difference in accent, but it\ncannot be changed by teachers in Colombo schools. If a person can communicate\nin English, he or she must be able understand the message and give messages\nwhether communicator learn English in the UK or in the USA, or in the East\nEuropean countries or the Middle Eastern countries, or India, South Africa or\nin China or Japan.  This is myth in Sri\nLanka about English in Colombo which is different from English in other places.\nI observed that many kids studied in Colombo so-called superior schools cannot\nproperly communicate in English Language and many policy makers and university\neducators in Sri Lanka are from regional areas. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parent\ncan save lots of money if schools located close to homes.  This has been a problem for more than seventy\nyears and the policy has not been corrected and now the education authority has\na dogma as schools cannot relocate and the possible solution is opening new\nschools or upgrading schools in rural areas injecting more resources to them\nwhile reducing resources in schools of Colombo and suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various\nallegorical acceptance have involved in searching for popular schools although\nthe education is a qualitative substance despite where kids were educated and\nSri Lanka\u2019s environment has not changed to disregard points such as the school\neducated, who were teachers or any other allegorical points when selecting for\njobs, for higher education and social acceptance if the person has required\nlevel of education and quality.  The\ngovernment needs launching a campaign against mythical views rooted in the\nsociety and make equity and justice for the quality of education irrespective\nof where it was obtained. This is a discrimination related issue and the\ngovernment needs considering anti-discrimination laws like in Western\ncountries, if any citizen has quality education, he\/she must not be subjected\nto discrimination based on a point from where education was obtained.  It is a rubbish if it considers to give\npriority for stupid points considering from where the education obtained, when\nselecting for a job.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current\neducation policy of the country has not organized the way given in the proposed\nhorizontal model and some areas of the country have many educational\ninstitutions while rural or regional Sri Lanka is not consist of education\ninstitutions to accommodate students in the area or sometimes, there is no\nenough education institutions and resources to provide basic education to the\ncommunity. This is a major disparity of existing education policy management\nand the proposed model indicated in part one could be used to each one million\npopulation without differences whether population located in urban or rural\narea.  The model will bring equality in\neducation distribution for people considering equity and justice equal\nopportunity without differences in gender, religion, regional, ethnic, language\nor any other such as where people networked in urban or rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nthe acceptance of the proposed model for education distribution, it is\nnecessary to address current major problems, which are associated with the past\ndecision making in the existing system. \nThe issues are varied and a considerable volume of young generation\nconsider that they have difficulties entering to job market or higher education\nor skill training.  The major point\nraised associated with issues such as wrong choice of study area, field, trade\narea or any other resulting unemployment. Bridging current unemployed graduates\nat university or higher education level or in any context of education to\ndevelop employable knowledge and skills or go to further education and training\nis an urgent requirement of education reforms. Kids had to encounter such\nproblems not only because faults of them but also a problem within the\neducation system, which has no guidance at school level to achieve ambitions\nand compare the ambition with economic environment. For this problem, parent,\nteachers as well as government policy makers are equally responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education\nand training could be widely used to solve the problem without creating any\ndisadvantage to any person. However, the sensitive environment in Sri Lanka\nprovokes attitudes of young generation pointing unrealized effects and the\npolicy makers need to understand this sensitive environment, which is\nassociated with politics. In the past, various steps took to reform curriculum\nstructure in schools since 1960s, but it was failed and the major reason for\nthe failure was politics and creating a wrong mental psychosis on the mind of\npeople by politicians without understanding the timely needs and future\nrequirements.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nreport of Prof Dudley Seers in late 1960s (Matching Employment Expectation and\nOpportunities: A Program Action for Ceylon) clearly indicated the requirement\nof curriculum reforms and the government effort was bog down by politics.  Therefore, when making education reforms, the\ngovernment must not forget the traditional Sinhala saying if you go with\nknowing can reach Kataragama, travelling without knowing the way would leave\nyou in the lurch\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nreforms in curriculum, teaching, training and flexibility in education could be\nused to eliminate the many problems in current environment. Looking at\neducation in many countries Sri Lanka\u2019s education could be expressed or firmly\nstated the exactly the right way, despite many opinions on educations\nespecially curriculum reforms in schools. \nIt is dependent on the future economic opportunities and trend of the\njob market and innovative features in other countries. This situation should be\nworked together with a view to solve problems, which were generated as results\nof past and continuing decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nthe given structure curriculum reforms is a broader aspect that eliminate\nunnecessarily aligning students to specific area of education such as science,\ncommerce and arts.  Many Western\ncountries allow students to learn arts, science and commerce together and\nsometimes to select other pathways in health, engineering, agriculture,\nservices, sports, and many other areas. In Australia, universities allow\nstudents to complete double degrees like Medicine and law or political science\nand arts, psychology etc. University education policy needs rapid changes and\nwhen students selected a study area, they should take the responsibility for\nselection and the university administration should give wider choices, however,\ncurrent university management seems that they failed to give wider choices for\nstudents.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curriculum\nreforms would direct to solve current major problems and it needs including key\nknowledge and skills education (value, health, environment and language\neducation).  Sri Lanka has many\nreligions, but the behaviour of followers is not consistent with the policies\nof religions. It seems that religion has become a symbol and religion is not\nworking in homes or workplaces or in the society.  In this situation curriculum reforms need\nfocus to offer value education in all educational contexts.  In Western countries, value education is key\nin practical knowledge and application. \nFor example, care and compassion are vital values which means care for\nself and others.  In any education\ncontext, safety is a value, which broadly apply any subject area and when value\neducation included, the behavioural pattern of students dramatically changed\nand the quality of knowledge and skills improve with a higher demand for\nknowledge and skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Value,\nhealth, environment and language education must be co area from primary\neducation to university education and the university management has failed\nconsider these area and next vital fact is university and TVET system in the\ncountry has no proper curriculum evaluation system, which is essential to\nperform once in two years. It is expensive and expert services demand for\nsuccessful evaluation. When students learn a subject at school level, or\ntechnical or university level, the nature of outcomes achieved after learning\nneither students, nor parent not teachers nor employers have idea.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next\npart will be in curriculum and teaching reforms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Part one of this article focused on a basic requirement a Horizontal Model for Education Distribution in the country for education reforms.  The structure for the model for a million population irrespective of where the population has networked or distributed, whether in rural or urban area, the proposed model designed to apply […]<\/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-96478","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\/96478","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=96478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}