SUMMARY OF SEMINAR

A seminar on “Private sector and civil society responses to the problem of year-1 school admissions” was held on July 9, 2005, 9:30 am to 1:00 pm at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI), Colombo. The seminar was organized by the Education Forum at the Pathfinder Foundation and co-sponsored by the SLFI. There were 27 persons attending. Others invitees sent their regrets or posted their comments on “Year 1 Admissions” post on this site. Some of the actionable ideas that came from the discussion are summarized here.

1. The root of the Year 1 Admissions problems is the under-supply of desirable schools for parents with young children. Every parent wants what is perceived to be the best for their child.

2. There are several options for increasing the supply of desirable schools.

* twinning between popular schools and other seemingly failing schools
* public-private-partnerships where the private sector takes over the management of a failing school in
* continued expansion of private education opportunities through Lyceum, Gateway, Ceylinco and other private providers.

We did not have time to discuss affordability and equity and other issues. Sometimes the best way to learn is to learn from others’ experience or through one’srown actions.

Therefore, our next steps will likely involve

* Forming an advisory group to guide us through our activities
* Expanding the concept paper using case studies
* Planning and implementing one or more small projects to try out some the ideas for increasing the supply.

Hope you all will stay with us and continue to give your inputs.

END OF SUMMARY

1. Many if not all of them require the expenditure of substantial amounts of money by the government. We know that the government of Sri Lanka is bankrupt, barely able to meet recurring expenditures and only managing to make minimal capital expenditures thanks to donor assistance. Simply proposing that more money be spent will not solve the problem. There are good reasons for why these solutions were not implemented in the past and unless those reasons change, these solutions will not be implemented.

2. The proposal that people be punished for illegal acts is on the face reasonable. However, the law can only do so much. When the gap between supply and demand is very wide (as is the case with Year One admissions), the incentives to engage in illegal actions are very strong. Even in a developed country with a well functioning legal system, the law cannot deal with such a situation. The only solution is to reduce the incentives, by allowing supply to increase or somehow decrease demand. Once they are more or less aligned, the legal system can punish the wrong-doers and maintain order. But Sri Lanka’s legal system is as broken as the rest of the systems: only about 5% of cases reach a conclusion (I have heard) and laws delays and corruption are quite prevalent. So it is extremely unrealistic to look to the law for a solution.

Bottomline, we have to find the money to increase supply of popular-school places. Because there is no money in government, we have to allow the private sector to invest. This was the case with telephones in the 1980s: demand and supply misaligned; massive corruption. If that sector had not been liberalized, the Presidential Investigations Unit would be arresting Regional Telecom Engineers, not Principals.

It is true that our year one admission system is a very difficult process. Difficult for all institutions & parties concerned and bring even traumatic experiences to some parents.

The moment a child is born whether a girl/boy, what goes on in any parents mind is which school they should select for the child to be sent for his /her education. It is every parents desire to see their child getting the best education in the country.

There is very little hope for those parents who themselves had had their education in a non-national/popular schools or in a school different from which they want to apply. According to how I see, this lot can be divided into different categories.

1. The upper/lower middle class who select International schools merely because they do not want to resort to any illegal method in trying to gain year 1 admission to a popular school (& not because they want to give their child a British education.) I for one, belong to this category. It is due to this reason that we see quite a number of lower middle class families even send their children to International schools now.

2. Be happy &content in sending the children to the nearest school whether good of bad.

3. Third category, which resorts to unorthodox methods and still manage to get scot free as far as the eyes of the law is concerned & yet manage to get a victory gaining admission to a so-called poplar school.

They have resorted to illegal methods changing Birth certificates, Electricity Bills, electoral registry, you name it. Until recently, our authorities were oblivion to the misdeeds for reasons best known to them. However, the recently set up commission too was proved unsuccessful in dealing with the situation. Infact the findings were backfired, unfortunately, as a result of the campaigns led by the parties loyal the elements concerned.

Now, how best can we approach this situation? How can we create a solution where by all parents can be benefited in a fair manner? How can we convince ourselves that there will be equal opportunity for all?

This is not an easy task. A solution to satisfy everybody is hard to come by. In my opinion, I would like to come up with the following suggestions.

1. Let us have very stringent laws to deal with unscrupulous elements who are party to this menace, be it the parents, principles, Gramasevakas … with prisons sentences involved.

2. At the same time, governments should immediately upgrade the standards of all the schools throughout the country. (Actually, this should come before implementing the first step. Because it is my view that when village schools lack facilities it is quite natural for a parent to dread selecting that school & we cannot really blame or punish them for what they resort to. Therefore, the upgrading should not be delayed and be attended to right away.

3. Apart from this, the teachers who select remote schools should be given incentives & rewards as a means of encouraging them to take up positions in such schools.

4. The children in non-popular schools should be given scholarships upon their performance at all levels and grades.

5. English medium should be introduced to all schools throughout the Island from grade 1 without any discrimination. New batch of teachers competent for this task should be recruited who take up a training course in the relevant fields.

Hasula Thushari Gange Kularathna (Parent)

1. MARKET ANALYSIS APPRPRIATE?: yes, why not. particularly in the tuition-class
context.

2. EXAM-CENTERD NATURE OF EDUCATION:i dont think the purely exam-centric mode of
instruction has anything to with the admission question per se. [plus the recent education reforms have been able to move away from it to some extent. now kids have continuous assessment of some sort.]

3. QUALITY, NETWORKS AND STATUS: yes i agree with your identification of the bundled product in terms of one and two; but not three. i know overdoze of it exists with most middle class parents at schools like royal, but i dont think it can be generalized.

4. IMPOSSIBLE TO SOLVE?:impossible is nothing [tagline of addidas]; difficult yes, but impossible: no.

5. IS IT A CRISIS REALLY?: i think it is beyond crisis when the first item on the agenda of “education” in a 4 1/2 year old is “learning to lie better than the competition”.

6. FEASIBLE TO INCREASE SUPPLY?: actually you should not dismiss it. your own examples of d.s and sirimavo are examples. perhaps a j.r and a chandrika could do potentially well.

7. PPPS AND VOUCHERS: i feel that the ppp and the vouchers are intertwined because you get one in return for the other. because the state gives alles a building and pays his teachers base pay, alles has to provide a certain number of vouchers. again you could consider the variable value voucher (c) model here too; the cost [and fees] will differ between a ppp school in dehiwela and dehiattakandiya.

8. PROPERTY TAX SOLUTION: yes it will. the proerty tax model will not work in
sri lanka for a number of reasons.

9. ABOLISH 2-MILE RULE?: well whether the 2-mile radius be abandoned is a tough question. its a little like the 100/200 meter rule and is obviously arbitrary, but on the other hand there has to be some filter. hopefully the discussion will produce some alternatives.

10. ABOLISH PAST PUPIL QUOTAS/INRODUCE COMPUTER ANALYSIS: just because you use a computer junk in –> junk out. that is not a solution. when did people stop cheating because of a computer? in fact it could exacerbate the problem. i feel that having things like old boy categories are good for a number of reasons, key among which is the incentive for ‘old boys’ to support the school so that the standards can be maintained for their children who have a better chance of entry than others. for instance, royal college union pays for a range of things from paying abans to clean toilets to purchasing sports equipment for almost every sport to scholarships for kids to pursue higher education at ivy league universities and 100s of millions in infrastructure development. not every school have ‘old boys’ who could [or are willing to] do so, but the logic is generalizable. also the rules are not opaque; but very clear cut.

11. POPULAR SCHOOLS FOR GRADE 5 ONLY: you mean that for instance royal college will be a
100% post-grade 5 scholarship shop? i dont understand your logic. are you saying that the grade 5 schol is a filter to separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’? i dont think you could defend that argument.

12. REINTRODUCE KANNANGARA SCHOOLS: dont know enough to answer; too tired now to research on it!

13. NON-GOVERNMENTAL SOLUTIONS: no beacuse it is a ppp. government is an important
stakeholder.

14. ROLE OF PROVINCIAL GOVERNMNETS: provincial governments as they now stand are a damn joke and we can worry about it once we get a proper power sharing system in place.

On the distance rule- just look at the unending construction of high rise quarters at the Cinnamon Gardens police station and compare the number of policemen / womens kids in the admission grade at Royal and Visakha – of course the latter is distorted by the Depot police quarters.