A tragedy

The full tragedy of over 400 home-trained nurses being declared unsuitable to work in the USA because of their lack of English proficiency has shocked all of us. Despite opposition by Sri Lankan chauvinists many of us have persevered in our attacks on the former stupidity of the Education policy of this country. Only FOUR out of four hundred applicants passed the English proficiency test conducted by the USA for applicants of nursing jobs abroad. This is a good measure of the sad, bad standard of English in our island.

Almost simulultaneously, we have a Booker Prize Award deservedly won by a Sri Lankan – but let this not make is feel any better. Shehan Karunatilake won the Booker award DESPITE, not BECAUSE, of the educational policy of our island. Then, recently, Kanya D’Almeida won the Commonwealth Essay Award and is now an established writer in English. But she won it BACAUSE a good English education in Sri Lanka helped her as she regularly acknowledges. She studied in the English medium.

This dichotomy reflects our tragedy. The ‘average’ Sri Lankan hasn’t a hope of ever getting anywhere in the International arena because the schooling given to Sri Lankans is so substandard and out of date … and in Sinhala or Tamil. (Tamil is at least spoken elsewhere but not Sinhala).In my unpopular opinion, it is the International Schools, Colombo’s Private Schools and Foreign Universities (which produced Kanya) which have kept a tiny percentage of our students capable of keeping up with the world. At the other end of the spectrum, I have a 19-year-old maid, who cannot even tell the time, albeit being bright and smart. She is from the Deniyaya area and barely attended school. She tells me there are many like her.

Let us face reality … an appallingly desperate reality …. Sri Lanka is not only bankrupt financially but is educationally bankrupt as well. The small percentage of well educated, English speaking Sri Lankans is no thanks to the system of Education given to us by foolish policy makers under stupid Ministers.

For once let us forget the word ‘Elite’ and try to bring ALL island schools up to the levels of the good private institutions in the country without bringing good schools down to government school levels ( as was done in the past). Schools left to their own devices somehow pull themselves up. I have seen small International Schools competing comfortably, with the better established International Schools of the TISSL group, after a few years of difficulty thus proving my point that it is possible to change the entire system if we set our mind to it.

Obviously, I believe in private education for those who can afford it. In fact, I think those who can afford it SHOULD be made to pay something to help a bankrupt nation. Free education has to be given of course, but it is being ridiculously and ineptly applied when we see that many cannot even take advantage of it.

Let the government take the advice of those who have nothing to do with the government and then implement those policies even against the views of those vociferous Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists who have so far decimated the educational policies of this once educated country.

Let us not fool ourselves. Being able to read and write does not make us 90% literate as we proudly announce every so often. Our youngsters are not really EDUCATED. Those 400 nurses are ‘educated’ Sri Lankan style but cannot compete in an international arena.

The usual noises are being made about great changes being made in the field of Education but so far neither have experts like Dr. Tara de Mel been even consulted, nor have there been any practical ideas about how Sri Lanka plans on upgrading the whole sorry system.In the face of this tragedy, can we not awake from our long and unearned slumber.

Goolbai Gunasekara