{"id":99024,"date":"2020-02-17T23:38:32","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T05:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99024"},"modified":"2020-02-16T20:11:42","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T03:11:42","slug":"sri-lankas-education-changing-the-system-by-whom-for-whom-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/17\/sri-lankas-education-changing-the-system-by-whom-for-whom-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s Education: Changing the System by whom, for whom &amp; why!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"221\" height=\"228\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/images-112.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-99025\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nis much talk of late about Sri Lanka\u2019s education system. It is definitely a\nprudent subject as the country\u2019s assets are its citizens and it is the citizens\nthat must protect and preserve the country &amp; all that it stands for. In\ndiscussing the subject we first need to be aware of some ground realities and\nfundamentals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\neducation system we follow today is what we have inherited from colonial rule.\nEssentially, it was a system aimed to usurp the nationalist feelings of the\npeople and align them towards western values and create groups of brown sahibs\nto take over once colonials left. With all that it is a wonder that we have\nmanaged to preserve the Sinhala identity, cultures and traditions all these\nyears and there are still youngsters amongst us who feel proud to continue it\nto the next generations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Education cannot remove Sri Lanka\u2019s\nHistory <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\ntrait of pride in one\u2019s nation, one\u2019s history &amp; heritage must be embedded\ninto the education system as the older generations that passed on their tales\nof pride are departing leaving only what is written to carry the beacon\nforward. Which is why the education system must ensure that the proud history\n&amp; heritage of Sri Lanka must be rolled out to all types of schools\n(public\/international\/semiprivate) in any medium of education (Sinhala, Tamil,\nEnglish)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is\nthis being addressed by the current text books. Hardly so, there are\ninconsistencies in the history texts, governments and officials have been\ntweaking history to their advantage, committees have not monitored and\ncorrected the mistakes. Therefore, a patriotic panel must first be appointed to\ntake history books from all grades in all mediums and ensure the correct\nhistory is printed and circulated and not the history to satisfy the fairy\ntales of some or their political agendas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What ails Sri Lanka\u2019s present\neducation system?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Memorizing not Learning<\/strong>: Should we continue this form of education system or\nshould we phase out a change at all grades? <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Every change of govt results in change of education\nsystem: <\/strong>every minority alliance\ndeems it their right to change education system. Every minister changes system\nto his\/her whims &amp; fancies \u2013 this must stop. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>How updated are textbooks &amp; teachers<\/strong>? Is school syllabus regularly updated and in keeping\nwith the changes happening locally &amp; globally? <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>School standards<\/strong>: Do all schools have the basic standards? No changes to education\nsystem can be rolled out if fundamentals in all schools are not equal. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>How equipped are schools<\/strong>? Do all schools have similar lab facilities \/\ncomputers or is it true some schools lack even a basic school building\/clean\ntoilets\/chairs and desks in good condition\/electricity and electric systems to\nuse multimedia etc<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Quality of Teachers:<\/strong> How many of todays\u2019 teachers be they in\npublic\/private\/international schools are trained to teach and love to teach or\nare they only teachers for a job? How many teachers are actually qualified to\nteach \/ how many teachers enjoy teaching\/how many teachers are able to uplift\nthe students, guide, counsel &amp; motivate them?&nbsp; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>What do exams aim at?<\/strong> Are exams structured to test the knowledge or do\nexaminers want to ensure students fail because governments cannot afford to\nhave students qualifying beyond a number? <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Lack of essential life skills <\/strong>(handiwork\/first aid\/basics for everyday\/hygiene\nexpanded to teaching how to grow plants\/love animals etc depending on the\ngrade) these essential life skills must be included to school learning hours.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Teach them basic everyday conversation skills &#8211; Tamil\nfor Sinhalese &amp; Muslims \/ Sinhalese for Tamils &amp; Muslims. <\/strong>Leave out heavy writing and reading. Stick to basic\nconversational skills so all can communicate and there onwards leave it to them\nto advance what they know.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Grooming sessions \u2013 <\/strong>how to dress\/ eat \/ cultural values \/ respect for\nelders etc<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>English language basics to write \/ read \/ understand\n\/ habit of reading newspapers &amp; referring dictionary &amp; practical\nsessions to regularly practice as this is more than sufficient to carry forward\nto world of work <\/strong>\u2013 this is more than\nenough for any child to build up their English to higher levels.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Study education systems of countries but don\u2019t just\ncut &amp; paste it to Sri Lanka \u2013 fine tune it to suit Sri Lanka<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why do parents want a good education\nfor their children?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every\nparent wants their child to pass at least the minimum level to qualify them to\ndo a job, to continue further studies or engage in any entrepreneurial activity\nto suit their talent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With\nthat education the parents expect the child to learn his\/her mother tongue, an\nadditional language that will assist their job and the ability to excel in a\nsubject that can help them rise in life. This is why it is important that the\nsyllabus of important subjects like Maths, Science, Commerce etc be updated so\nthat students are learning areas that are not outdated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why does a\nGovt need an educated society?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sri Lanka has 10,194 government schools\nwith 4.1million children and 241,591 teachers. 167,907\nqualified to gain admission to university in 2018 but only 31,451 students were\nadmitted.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4.1million children attend school <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(3million\nSinhala \/ 1million Tamil \/ 84,720 in English)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>322,135 grade 1 admissions (2017)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>10,194 government <\/strong><strong>schools <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>(National schools \u2013 353 \/Provincial Schools &#8211; 9,841) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Of the 353 national schools 37 are in Colombo.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>National schools represent a mere 3.5% of all schools, but\nalmost 19.5% of students are in national schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9% of schools have less than 5 teachers <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>14.6% of schools have less than 50 students &amp; just over 5000\nhave less than 200 students.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Medium of instruction in Schools \u2013 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sinhala only<strong> 6,332 (62%)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tamil only <strong>3,009 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sinhala &amp; Tamil <strong>75 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sinhala &amp; English <strong>558 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tamil &amp; English <strong>173 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sinhala, Tamil &amp; English <strong>47<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>There are 241,591 teachers <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graduate teachers <strong>106,756 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Trained teachers 129,638<\/strong> &#8211; Teachers qualified with teacher Training colleges\/ National Colleges of Education certificates and teachers having 2 years\u2019 diploma in Science\/Mathematics<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Untrained teachers 3,311<\/strong> &#8211; 2-3 years\u2019 diploma holders (absorbed to Sri Lanka Teacher Service)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Trainee teachers 1,293<\/strong> &#8211; Teachers not absorbed to Sri Lanka Teacher Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other teachers 59<\/strong>3 &#8211; Teachers paid by other government institutes and teachers paid by nongovernment institutes \/ organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 97.9 % of the teachers in government schools are either graduates or trained teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Screen-Shot-2020-02-12-at-6.31.34-AM-1024x852.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-99026\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Only 1.8% students in Sri\nLanka study in English medium &amp; 30% live in Western province.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 10,194 government schools only 5,643 schools have\ncomputer facility (55%) \u2013 69% of this 5643 schools is in the Western Province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are 10,194 government schools\n241,591 teachers &amp; 416,5964 students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are 80 private schools of which\n36 are fee-levying with 6555 teachers &amp; 136,462 students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nare 265 international schools with 56,919 students &amp; 4927 teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Now let\u2019s look at the results: 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>518,184\nsat for O\/L \u2013 71.66% qualified to do A\/L<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>9413\nstudents scored 9As for O\/L<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>321,469 sat\nfor A\/L &#8211; <strong>167,907 students gained admission to university<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No. of Universities &#8211; 15<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No.\nof Other Higher Educational Institutions \u2013 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No. of Students (Undergraduates) 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Universities\n&#8211; 94,681<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Institutes\n&#8211; 3,633<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open\nUniversity &#8211; 24,453<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No.\nof Students (Postgraduate) &#8211; 32,849<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>New admissions for degree &#8211; 31,451\nstudents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No.\nof Lecturers &#8211; 5,940<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only\n1,176 enter to do medicine<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only\n1,713 enter to do engineering<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, <strong>167,907 qualified to gain admission to university but only 31,451\nstudents entered \u2013 what was left for 136,456 to do? Some would have gone\noverseas, some would have followed a private course, some would have given up\nstudies and gone into employment etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EMPLOYMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>5million\nin private sector &amp; according to World Bank contributes more than 60% to\nSri Lanka\u2019s GDP of which 20% comes from the service sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>437,797 unemployed in 2019 \u2013 about 45,000-50,000 <strong>unemployed graduates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public and semi <strong>government sector employees,<\/strong> exceeds 1.3 million (government ministries, departments, provincial councils,\nand local government institutions as well as other public enterprises,\ngovernment-owned institutions, and state banks \u2013 2017) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(5.5% of total population) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This excludes uniformed\nstaff of the three forces: Army, Navy and air Force) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>84,000 public sector employees are above 55 years out of which\nabout 61,000 are currently employed in either the state or the Provincial\nPublic Sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>190,498 public sector employees or 17\npercent employees have not passed the GCE (O\/L) examination.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>290,378 graduates employed in public\nand semi government sectors.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A\ntotal of 225,000 or one out of five are working in the Colombo district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More\nthan 60% of public and semi government employees report the ability to use a\ncomputer but only 36% use computers to perform their official duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The difference in English education\n&amp; Education in English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Census of Population and Housing data indicate that <strong>English\nliteracy is just 22% among Sri Lanka\u2019s population above 15 years of age.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When there is not sufficient English teachers to teach in all of\nthe national schools and when the standard of that English is also not up to\nmark in what context are some proposing to conduct all subjects in the English\nmedium? <strong>What is the standard of the 35,000 English teachers already\nteaching in English across Sri Lanka?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are all public schools on par in terms of facilities\n(infrastructure \/ facilities \/ teachers etc) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are economic conditions of students\/parents able to pay for\nadditional English education books etc? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do we really need all subjects to be in English or should the\nEnglish subject taught be taught well so that by end of O\/L or at least grade 8\na child knows to read, write and understand English well enough to improve as\nhe\/she progresses? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What authorities cannot do is to remove the status given to the\nmother tongue \u2013 Sinhalese and Tamil language must remain first medium of\nlanguage for all children &amp; compulsory learning. No system change or\nEnglish proposal can change or remove the mother language status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is this proposal for English education in all subjects one that\nsubtly intends to import foreigners to teach English and draft their own\nsyllabus and completely culturally change our children returning to the\neducation format of colonial rule? Given the impossibility of rolling such a\nproposal across Sri Lanka given the lack of facilities and basic standards in\nschools, is this not going to create a social divide with the have\u2019s on a\nhigher pedestal to have nots and causing more social stigma and divisions\nresulting in more chaos?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is much talk of late about Sri Lanka\u2019s education system. It is definitely a prudent subject as the country\u2019s assets are its citizens and it is the citizens that must protect and preserve the country &amp; all that it stands for. In discussing the subject we first need to be aware of some ground [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99024","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\/1498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}