Education system needs skills of conceptualisation

I remember now what I was told by the headmaster of the Sinhala School at Trincomalee, which I visited on a project to provide furniture soon after the Indo-Lanka Accord had been signed in 1987. I found the school admirably run and congratulated the principal who told me that he had not done much when he was first transferred there. But then he said Brigadier Kobbekaduwa had dropped in and, having seen the mess, asked where his children were. When he said they were in school in Colombo, Denzil Kobbekaduwa had suggested he ran the school as though his own children were in it.

Speech delivered by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha as Guest of Honour at the inauguration ceremony of the MA/PGD in English and Education, 13 February 2022

Let me begin by congratulating the university, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies on launching the second year of this course. I was happy to teach on it last year, since it seemed a praiseworthy service for teachers and, though diffident now after the Coronavirus, I felt I should do what I can this year too.

After all, this is a resurrection of a course I started over 20 years ago, though that had to fade away when the university could not provide residential accommodation for participants. Fortunately, that is not a problem you face, with advanced technology, and these Zoom classes you have so capably arranged.

Innovation is obviously necessary now in this bleak world we find ourselves in, and I am glad Sabaragamuwa is at the forefront of the field. And I am also very glad that you continue with the tradition, established when the university started, of multidisciplinary courses. It was our first Vice-Chancellor, Prof Somasundara, who had the novel idea of Major/Minor courses. Following his initiative, along with Dr. Nirekha Starkloff-Weeratunge, I was able to initiate a programme that, as the last UGC Chairman told me, was better suited to employment opportunities than others.

It was in fact the best of his predecessors, Arjuna Aluwihare, who first thought of core courses when he set up Affiliated University Colleges. And whereas other universities hidebound by tradition sniffed, the University of Sri Jayewardenepura under Prof SB Hettiarachchi took up the challenge and did a great job. That system continued at Sabaragamuwa, which insisted on soft skills long before the term became fashionable.

And both Sabaragamuwa and Jayewardenepura took up my suggestion of introducing pedagogy when it was first mooted, two decades back, when others baulked and thought that beneath them. So too with translation, which we started long ago, whereas the less imaginative delayed. It was only a decade later that the importance of translation studies was understood and encouraged – with your former Dean, Dr. Ariyaratne, now being recognised as the doyen of translation studies in this country.

But while I continue to admire your innovations at Sabaragamuwa, I have to admit to deep despair, deeper than that the Coronavirus has caused, at the failure of our education system at large to adjust to new realities. Unfortunately, skills of conceptualisation are not only lacking as an objective of our system of education, but they are also totally lacking in the administrators who have run it now for decades.

What is the principal problem we now face? It is the difficulty of face to face contact. What is the answer to the problem? Without thinking twice we should respond that it is to develop more opportunities for self-study. What is the key to better self-study? Obviously, it is materials.

You may wonder then why our educationists have failed to develop better materials in the last two years. But you would not wonder if you had registered that the simple question and answer technique I used just now is totally beyond their comprehension. However, I believe there is also another reason for their failure in this regard, which may be a mark of greater intellectual capacity than I generally attribute to them, but indicates greater moral turpitude.

I refer to the rent-seeking that bedevils the production of materials by those responsible for them in the Ministry of Education. Our students have to work with substandard materials, which are no encouragement at all to self-study. Whereas in days gone by students would have incentives to read school textbooks on their own, to follow up on information or a story, that does not occur now because the texts are so uniformly dull. And of course, as a consequence of these appalling texts, students are at the mercy of not just their teachers but, more insidiously, the tuition industry.

Many years ago Tara de Mel, as Secretary of Education, tried what is termed a Multiple Book Option, to persuade established publishers to produce texts for our children. The vested interests stopped that, first by threatening reputed international publishers, in alliance with our booksellers who saw their primacy threatened if they had to face competition; second by cartels set up by senior officials at the NIE who produced what were supposed to be independently produced textbooks. Enough water has now passed under the bridge for me to mention the chief culprit, a man called Siyambalagoda, who was in charge of Social Sciences at the NIE and had set up a group of writers, some of whom did not know the subject about which they were hired to write.

Tara de Mel had the distinction of being disliked by both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapaksa, so she faded away, and after she went, there has been no innovation whatsoever from the Ministry. Tragically, what should have been an opportunity for innovation, when coronavirus struck us two years ago, was lost in a welter of traditional spoonfeeding masquerading as novelty through technology which did not reach too far.

The idea of contained bubbles where limited contact could take place did not occur to anyone. The idea of making better use of the computer laboratories built and equipped at vast expense and kept empty for hours each week, did not occur to anyone. The idea of producing simple texts that students might enjoy reading on their own, with exercises to develop soft skills that they could do with partners within a bubble did not occur to anyone.

As you know, the Advanced Level Examination is now happening, for those who took their Ordinary Level Examination in December 2018. Tara de Mel’s attempt to streamline the school calendar and save at least some of the time our children now waste was halted with a change of government, and it is only now, fifteen years after that damage was done, that those in authority have started to think about that problem, only to be defeated by the Coronavirus on top of their own lethargy.

What is wrong with us? A clue may be found in the fact that I don’t think we have for years had an Education Minister whose children all went to government schools. It is true that some might have gone to Royal College, but as I found this week from someone doing the Advanced Level Examination, there too teaching is minimal. Its cachet lies in the name, and the jobs available to those with the old school tie, regardless of academic qualifications. Of course, the school does have its proponents of academic excellence, but they tend to have succeeded through tuition, not school work. So there is no incentive to improve things for the masses.

I remember now what I was told by the headmaster of the Sinhala School at Trincomalee, which I visited on a project to provide furniture soon after the Indo-Lanka Accord had been signed in 1987. I found the school admirably run and congratulated the principal who told me that he had not done much when he was first transferred there. But then he said Brigadier Kobbekaduwa had dropped in and, having seen the mess, asked where his children were. When he said they were in school in Colombo, Denzil Kobbekaduwa had suggested he ran the school as though his own children were in it.

He took the lesson to heart. But there are no Kobbekaduwas left now, men of courage and inspiration, on the large scale. We have to be content then with the little bit we can do, and I am glad Sabaragamuwa does what it can, to improve the position of at least a few teachers striving to provide better English, and hence a better future, for our children.