Lessons from a Principal

The “Principal” Factor by Goolbai Gunasekara – Sarasavi Publishers –205 Pages – 2021. Rs.400.00 – Reviewed by Leelananda De Silva.

In 1962, the government took over assisted schools. Free education became the monopoly of the state. A few private schools were allowed to function and they levied fees. Later on, especially after 1977, a more expanded private sector in education emerged with many international schools being established, teaching in the English medium. There are now two types of school education. The public sector schools teach largely in the vernacular medium, and education is free. The private sector schools teach in the English medium. State sector students largely seek employment in government, central and local, and privately educated children largely seek employment in the private sector.

Government departments, local authorities and state enterprises have become heavily over-staffed and has become a huge burden on the state coffers, a major reason for the current economic crisis. The privately educated minority has largely sought employment in the corporate business and financial sector, and they contribute to a thriving productive private sector.

Goolbai Gunasekara, the author, comes from an impeccable educational background. Her mother, Clara Motwani, was a dominant figure in Ceylon’s educational system in the early part of the twentieth century. She was principal of Visakha Vidyalaya and other Buddhist schools. Her father-in-law, P.R. Gunasekara later Ceylon’s Ambassador to Paris, and immediately after Cambridge was Principal of Mahinda College, Galle, my old school, from 1928 to 1932.

The author herself has been active in the field of education and was principal of the Asian International School, where she’s now a director. The volume is a collection of articles written on many aspects of education and also of managing an international school.

Goolbai has been active in literally circles and is a well-known writer with many books to her credit. I am not aware of any other principal of a school in Sri Lanka, who has written about their experiences.

Right through the volume, the significant role of principal of a school in the education system can be observed. The principal is the key factor in managing and running the school. He or she has the authority to recruit teachers, oversee their performance, take disciplinary action, organize the curriculum, manage the relationship with parents, ensure student discipline, and so on.

This is very much unlike the situation which prevails in government schools since 1962. Principals in state schools have lost their autonomy and are agents of the government and more particularly of the ministry of education. Principals are now anonymous characters in a vast government bureaucracy. The education department tells the principal what to do. It is this diminished role of the principal which is as responsible for the decline of standards as much as the exclusion of the English medium.

Goolbai has specialized in history. There is a perceptive chapter on the teaching of history. She rightly argues that in teaching history we should focus on global history. This is essential in a globalizing world. In our undergraduate days in the 1950s, the University at Peradeniya focused on British, European, Indian and Ceylon history.

In teaching history it is essential to avoid text books written by government authorities or their acolytes. Such histories peddle many angles including communalism and religious bigotry. In teaching history at the schools level, what is critical is to develop in the child a sense of history, which will last through a lifetime.

Today in Sri Lanka there is very little idea even among professionals of the history of their own professions, whether it be in public administration, medicine, engineering. Medical students who walk about on Kynsey Road in Colombo are not aware of Dr. Kynsey, who was the founding father of the Ceylon medical service. There is very little attention to preserving records of the past. There is no idea of how policies evolved over time.

The author has strong views on teaching in the English medium. There is no reason why any child should be deprived of an early English education. English should find a place in the curriculum as early as possible, even when the main body of teaching is in the vernacular.Students from affluent families have access to a knowledge of English from pre-school days.

The less affluent children should not be denied access to English, a premise based on some theories that early education should be in the mother tongue. We know that these arch proponents of vernacular teaching, deviate from their own preaching, when it comes to their own children. In the 1960’s English was viewed as a colonial language. Now English is the international language.

The author states, in her chapter on unemployed graduates that “the introduction of Free Education started the downward slide of standards as it was implemented without too much thought by a PM who was himself not an educated man.” This is puzzling to me. Is the author referring to school level or university education or both? Free education at the school level has been a great boon to the poorer sections of society. They can now read and write and understand the many aspects of their work much better. The vast majority of the poor, work in the informal sector and in agricultural occupations, and they are better equipped to perform their tasks.

The United Nations recognized the significant achievement of Sri Lanka in improving its social indicators (health, education, maternal mortality rates, population growth rates) and this is partly due to free education. At the university level free education is not the problem. It is the adoption of vernacular languages as the medium of instruction, as recognized by Ivor Jennings way back in the 1940’s.

International schools are business enterprises. It is only fair to expect them to have a sense of Corporate Social Responsibility. What kinds of linkages and connections can they establish with more deprived schools in their area? We lived in Windsor, England, and Eton College was half a mile away. Once or twice a year, Eton along with three or four local authority schools, organized “Open Days” to raise funds for the latter. Is it feasible for international schools to establish productive linkages with their neighbouring schools?