J. E. JAYASURIYA – SRI LANKA’S PIONEER EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST

by Dr. Dayanath Jayasuriya P. C.

Emeritus Professor Nalaka Mendis, former Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colombo will deliver the 32nd J. E. Jayasuriya memorial lecture on ‘Health, Mental Health and Well-being’ on February 10, 2023 at 5 00 p.m. at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.

Previous orators at the Memorial Lectures have addressed Professor J. E. Jayasuriya’s (JEJ) contribution, both locally and internationally, to education planning; mathematics education; teacher training; comparative education; and population education, to name only a few of the wide ranging subjects JEJ was well known for.

JEJ’s role as an educational psychologist is one area that deserves more attention and Nalaka has appropriately chosen a topic that was very close to JEJ’s work. Educational psychology has been described as the theoretical and research branch of modern psychology, concerned with the learning processes and psychological problems associated with the teaching and training of students.

The educational psychologist studies the cognitive development of students and the various factors involved in learning, including aptitude and learning measurement, the creative process, and the motivational forces that influence dynamics between students and teachers. Educational psychology is a partly experimental and partly applied branch of psychology, concerned with the optimization of learning.

In the late 1940’s, Professor J. E. Jayasuriya (JEJ) did his M.A. at the University College, London and chose educational psychology and statistics as a subject for his dissertation. Influenced by Charles Spearman’s early work on factor analysis, JEJ researched on the integrated approach to teaching of and testing in mathematics. His findings were subsequently published in the influential Mathematical Gazette in U.K. His book on Statistical Calculation for Teachers published by McMillan, U.K. was considered as a very simple introduction to a complicated subject and for several years it remained as a recommended text in many British, Australian, Indian and Sri Lankan universities. JEJ became an Associate Member of the British Psychological Society and later was admitted as a Chartered Psychologist with the right to practice in the U.K.

After joining the Education Department of the University of Ceylon during the time when Sir Ivor Jennings was the Vice Chancellor, he taught educational psychology, among other subjects, until his early retirement in 1971 to join UNESCO as its first Regional Adviser on Population Education for Asia and the Pacific.

In 1968 Walwin De Silva- a distinguished education administrator himself- was appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the Colombo University and he invited JEJ to deliver to the academic staff a series of public lectures on new teaching methods and assessment techniques. The final lecture was on the ‘psychological needs of undergraduates’ and whilst waiting for a lift home I myself sat in the last row of a crowded theatre and followed his lecture. During my own teaching career spanning over 40 years I often recalled his guidance on addressing students with different learning abilities and the extra help that needed to be provided and more importantly to encourage such students to cultivate and foster the learning and recalling skills they were good at.

It was recently that I had sight of an article in Sinhala in the Divayina of January 28, 2018 written by a former student of his and a Director at the National Institute of Education that contained a synopsis of an orientation lecture he had delivered 30 years ago. JEJ had mentioned that at school, he could hardly paint. One day the teacher had put on the board his painting saying that that was the worst painting among all students.

A highly respected senior teacher passing by had seen what was happening and told the art teacher that he should immediately remove displaying the painting as this student is annually a prize winner at Wesley College not only of the class prize but also the English prize, mathematics prize, the Latin prize and the Greek prize and that everyone cannot aspire to be a Picasso. This incident probably influenced something he used to often advocate, namely that weak students in any important subject must be provided with additional help, even after school.

From 1950 onwards JEJ has published over 30 articles in Japan, UK, India and Sri Lanka on educational psychology matters – these range from juvenile delinquency; the relationship between intelligence tests and school performance; communalism in Ceylon- its philosophy and psychology; problems of adolescents in Sri Lanka; the concept of the ‘ideal self’ in Sinhalese children; some psychological aspects of culture revival; and the prognosis of mathematical ability.

In an article published in India, he underlined the role parents and siblings have to play in a child’s educational development; bonding has many benefits. JEJ was critical of the heavy burden of home-work that is entrusted to students. He gave an example of a 10-year old child being asked to name 10 fruits exported by Sri Lanka and the names of the recipient countries. Whilst not denying the need for home work, he emphasized that it must be a pleasurable activity for the child. An example he gave is of children being asked to prepare to relate next day a humorous experience they have had.

In 1961, the Governor-General, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, appointed JEJ as the chairman of the 20-member Royal Commission on educational reforms. Among the other members were the father of free education Dr. C. W. W. Kannangara, Professor K. Rajasuriya and L. H. Mettananda. The Commission issued two reports and it has been remarked by previous orators that some of the forward looking recommendations contained in them were in fact the precursor to the recommendations of the Jacques Delor Commission appointed by UNESCO several years later in the 1990’s.

JEJ standardized for the Sri Lankan context many intelligence tests. Raven’s non-Verbal Progressive Matrices is a non-verbal test typically used to measure general human intelligence and abstract reasoning and is regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence (i.e. the ability to think abstractly, reason quickly and problem solving independently of any previously acquired knowledge).

A friend of mine at Trinity College told me that he had met my father only once and that is when he and the Principal had come to his classroom to administer the Raven’s non verbal test. Much to the surprise of teachers and fellow students, my friend had attained almost the highest achievable score. He blossomed later in life and held high positions in an international organization, including that as special envoy to the Director-General and nationally was the President of a reputed professional body as well as the chairman of a statutory body. Though cynics sometimes dispute the validity of such test results, there are many well documented case studies of the reliability of these tests as a prognosis of ability.

Realizing that mentally retarded (intellectually disabled) children in the Central Province had no access to residential facilities for rehabilitation, he was instrumental in raising public funds to build a home at Lewella, not far away from Kandy. It was subsequently handed over to the national association to run and manage.

The University of Colombo now has its own Department of Educational Psychology with a Chair in Educational Psychology and it is as if educational psychology has eventually come of age in this country, almost three or four decades after the first course of lectures on educational psychology were delivered by JEJ.