Educational reforms: Urgent national need

By Prof. O. A. Ileperuma

(Continued from 07 July 2023)

Now, there are around 6900 schools which have GCE A/L, but only around 1900 offer science-based subjects. This is a major flaw in our education system where it has not adjusted to the employment opportunities where science based-education is essential to produce the manpower requirements, especially in the IT sector.  Undergraduate admissions to universities in India are mainly in the science and technology sectors, accounting for about 70% of all admissions, while the corresponding value in Sri Lanka is only 46%, according to statistics published by the University Grants Commission.

While students graduate at an average age of around 21 years in most foreign countries, here the average age of a graduate, at the time of graduation, is around 25 years for a three-year degree and much longer for other courses. Sri Lanka’s universities probably have the oldest undergraduates in the whole world!  If the reforms mentioned at the beginning of this letter are implemented then it is possible to commence university education when a student reaches 18 years of age and graduate when they are 22 years old.

The result of all these unnecessary and avoidable delays is that the most productive years of a young person are lost to the nation. Most countries, including our neighbour India, have only 12 years of school education while we have 13 years. The above-mentioned suggestions will ensure a more productive group of young people who will have a head start in their professions later on.

Delays at both the UGC and the Examinations Department are responsible for the delays in finalising university admissions. The Examinations Department takes nearly six months to release the results after the marks are submitted by marking panels. With all modern IT facilities at their disposal, it defies logic to understand why the Examinations Department takes so long to enter the marks and release the results.  This is either sheer incompetency or a lackadaisical attitude of those at the top. No other country in the whole world has such kind of delays before students are admitted to higher educational Institutions, after they sit the entrance school examinations. Obviously, something has to be done fast about these delays. There was a time, several years back, when the A/L examinations were held in April and the students were admitted to the Universities in November. This was due to the initiative and persistence of the then secretary to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education who was a Professor of Chemistry! This amply illustrates that lazy bodies can be moved given effective leadership. If there is a will there’s a way and I blame those at the very top, including administrative heads, and even the subject ministers, for not paying adequate attention to this national problem.

The biggest obstacle to the implementation of educational reforms is the proliferation of state agencies responsible for their implementation. The Ministry of Education has a policy unit and the National Institute of Education (NIE) was set up in 1985 and the National Educational Commission (NEC) in 1991. NEC has the mandate to propose educational policy reforms to the Government and although it has submitted some reports none have been implemented. Most of our political leaders only paid lip service to education, with the exception of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who took some interest in carrying out some changes to our education system. When nothing tangible came out of the NEC, she appointed a presidential task force which introduced some reforms, such as the introduction of the English medium as the medium of instruction which was a step in the right direction. However, the reduction of subjects at the GCE (A/L) from four to three was an ill-conceived change carried out without adequate dialogue with the academic community from Universities. At least in the sciences, all Faculties of Science resolved on two occasions to amalgamate the physical and biological science streams and have four subjects in the science stream, viz. Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Biology. These proposals never received any attention but instead she listened to a few handpicked experts to effect this change in the number of subjects.

English plays a vital role when we are rapidly moving towards a global village through advances in Information Technology. Unlike India, which praised the inheritance of English from the British as a gift from God Saraswathi, Sri Lanka abolished the English medium in the science stream in the 1970s and neglected English teaching in schools for cheap political reasons in the name of pseudo-nationalism. Even though every rural school has an English teacher, most students do not learn anything beyond the alphabet. I have personally seen this in science undergraduates and some of them even leave the universities half-way, unable to cope up with English which is the medium of instruction in the universities.

There is no proper supervision of teaching in schools. During my school days in the 1960s there used to be a team of school inspectors who virtually “raided” the schools without prior notice. They went straight to classrooms, tested the knowledge of students, even going to the extent of examining teachers’ class notes. These inspectors were competent teachers who got promotions, according to merit and not due to political connections as is happening now. Today, when the education officers visit schools, they simply sign the logbook, talk to the principal and leave. No wonder that the teaching in schools has deteriorated and those who can afford, send their children to private tuition classes. Free education is certainly a misnomer and only those who can afford tuition classes help students to pass the competitive GCE A/L examinations.

Education reforms need inputs from a wide range of professionals in diverse fields. It should not be the prerogative of a few self-appointed experts and parliamentarians who are mostly unqualified to make effective solutions.