SECRETARY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, RETIREMENT AND BEYOND

by Eric. J. de Silva

The Ministry of Education was a totally new experience. When I called over at the Ministry to meet Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, the new minister, at the old colonial building at Malay Street in Colombo-2, he was candid enough to accept that things had not got better despite the political change at the Education Ministry, and that meant under the UNP administration which took over from its predecessor in 1977. He went on to say that I could make whatever changes that were necessary to rectify this situation and help the government to achieve the ultimate objective.

I was thus able to proceed to my room and take my seat without having any qualms about it. The discussions I had with Ministry officials and, wherever possible, with district officials showed in no uncertain terms that both at the center and the regions the Ministry was functioning at a pretty low level of efficiency and a thorough shake-up and appropriate remedial action seemed overdue.

This is what I set out to do with the fullest backing of the Minister. At my very first meeting with him, he made it clear that his priorities were to (i) re-organize the Ministry and make it a working outfit and (ii) prepare a White Paper on education reforms for the purpose of reaching some basic agreement with the general public. As far as re-organizing the Ministry was concerned he gave me a ‘carte blanche’ to pick the best possible team to man the key posts in the administration.

After a few days of deliberation and consultation with relevant persons both inside and outside the Ministry, I presented the Minister with a blueprint for a totally new structure for the Ministry with four divisions each under an Additional Secretary reporting to me. I suggested to bring into the Ministry several distinguished individuals – E.L. Wijemanne, M.B.C. Silva, and Neil Fernando – to head three of these divisions, towards which the Minister had no hesitation in giving his approval. Since Edward (E.L. Wijemanne) had already retired from service, he was offered the post of ‘Chief Adviser’ while others took up posts of Additional Secretary.

Thereafter, the Minister set up a number of Working Committees, involving the Ministries of Education, Higher Education and Youth Affairs, to prepare the contents of the White Paper on education reforms to be placed before Parliament and the people. An interesting feature in this exercise was the involvement of key officials associated with the formulation of the 1972 educational reforms in the drafting of the new proposals.

The 1972 reforms, despite being revolutionary and well-intentioned, had unfortunately fallen short in practice owing to their hasty implementation and the lack of prior public discussion, eventually becoming the subject of political controversy in the period leading to the 1977 General Elections.

Thus, the White Paper containing proposals for reforming general education, university education and tertiary (vocational, technical and professional) education was published in 1981 for public perusal and discussion, as White Papers are meant to do.

It contained a number of proposals relating to the formation of school clusters for better management, the diversification of university and tertiary-level courses, curriculum development, teachers’ service, administration of the education system and so on, making the White Paper a very comprehensive document that provided an excellent opportunity for agreement to be reached across the political divide. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

The UNP, while being in the opposition, had exploited public disaffection with the 1972 reforms to gain political advantage – and now it was the turn of their opponents, the constituent parties of the previous United Front government. The White Paper got caught up in what Dr. P. Udagama so aptly described as “Education in Sri Lanka is very much a political act and sometimes it is a party political act.” Much of the debate sparked off by the White Paper was based not on its contents but on hearsay and partisan political propaganda, including claims that it was an insidious attempt to make inroads into free education and introduce privatization through the backdoor as part of the open economy that the ruling party was wedded to.

There was very little informed discussion but an abundance of slogan shouting, highly charged political protests and street demonstrations, often fuelled by the JVP that had come out of its shell since the debacle it suffered in the early seventies.

With a General Election not too far away, Government MPs got cold feet and pressurized President J.R. Jayewardene not to proceed with the White Paper other than for a few non-controversial proposals. What this experience showed us was that even White Papers can get caught up in political hailstorms, instead of paving the way for rational discussion.

RETIREMENT FROM

GOVERNMENT SERVICE

AND BEYOND

Following my stint at the Ministry of Education, I went on a five-year period of leave from government service to serve as the Chief Technical Advisor for the ‘Quality Improvement of General Education’ project implemented by UNDP and UNESCO in the 1980s. The objective of this project was to introduce a new subject known as ‘Life Skills’ into the secondary school curriculum, which was to help students acquire a number of skills needed in day to day life as the name suggests; such as changing a light bulb, fixing a tyre puncture and so on.

Many distinguished individuals from the field of education, including Prof J. E. Jayasuriya, served as advisors to this project alongside foreign consultants. I was fortunate to have the services of a team of very committed professionals such as J.H.S. Tissera and D. S. Mettananda to assist me. Together, we developed the curriculum for the new subject, conducted a number of pilot programmes and implemented it in a phased-out manner. Although regrettably this subject is not taught in schools today, I believe it would have undoubtedly been useful to those students who had the opportunity to study it in school.

Thereafter, I returned to the public service to take up the position of Director at Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA), the country’s premier training institute for the public service. It needs mention that this was a position I had held many years before, when the institution was called the Academy of Administrative Studies. I remained as the Director of SLIDA until my retirement from the service in 1990, upon which I engaged in an independent capacity in several projects both locally and overseas.

The first such project I took up post-retirement was to serve as the Senior Technical Adviser to a UN-ESCAP initiative, the Jakarta Plan of Action for Human Resource Development in Asia and the Pacific Region.

This appointment required me to reside in Bangkok for over two years, and marked the first time that I had lived overseas for such a long period. I was fortunate enough to secure accommodation at an apartment block where one of my close friends, Mr. Selvaratnam and his wife, also lived.

Immediately following this assignment, I undertook a short stint as the team leader of a UNDP Mission to evaluate the National Institute of Education in 1993, back in Sri Lanka.

The year 1993 bore witness to a dramatic upheaval in Sri Lankan political history with the assassination of President R. Premadasa. When Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe – with whom I had worked closely during my time at the Ministry of Education – succeeded to the position of Prime Minister, he invited me in November 1993 to serve as an Advisor to him in my capacity as a retired government official.

At the time, Mr K.M. Abeysingha was serving as the Secretary to the Prime Minister. One of my responsibilities in this role was to coordinate the Development Secretaries’ meeting that was presided over by the PM, which facilitated the expediting of many development projects during this time. I held this position until September, 1994.

My involvement in educational policy did not end with the change of government as I was invited in May 1997 to take on the position of Director-General of the Education Reforms Implementation Unit, a separate unit set up by President Chandrika Kumaratunge for the purpose of fast-tracking the reforms proposed by the Presidential Task Force set up in 1996 with regard to improvements in general education. I held this position for a period slightly exceeding one year. More information on these reforms can be found in my book, Politics of Education Reform.

Sometime thereafter, together with Dr. G. Usvatte-Aratchi, Dr. W.M.K. Wijetunga, D.S. Mettananda and Dr. K.S.E. Jayatilleke, I convened an independent group of individuals interested in educational policy, which was named the Education Research and Study Group (ERSG). In 1999, the ERSG organized a policy dialogue on the subject of the Ministry’s proposal on the restructuring of schools, the proceedings of which were published and made available to Parliamentarians and the general public.

This discussion (which too can be found as an addendum in Politics of Education Reform) provided valuable insights on the education policy-making process in Sri Lanka, as well as arguments for and against the proposed restructuring. Suffice it to say that the restructuring proposal was abandoned by the Ministry soon thereafter.

Nearly five years later and having declined multiple opportunities offered to me from time to time, I finally accepted the position of Adviser to the Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation in April 2003, which was to be my last formal engagement in policy matters. During the next one year up to April 2004, I served as the Convener of the Steering Committee on Human Resources Development under the Regaining Sri Lanka initiative spearheaded by Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe in his second period as Prime Minister.

The committee consisted of a number of individuals from diverse backgrounds of expertise, such as well-known academics and representatives of the private sector. Thus ended my 45-year spell in public service and administration.