Sri Lanka Education Forum » News&Views

Subject: Sri Lanka&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#039;s Education : What authorities need to do

Simon Anurada — Tue, 22 May 2007 07:15:54 +0000

Startling Figures of the GCE O/L 2006 results ·

52500 candidates sit for GCE O/L. ·

48.7% pass ·

51% fail · 21813 candidates fail all subjects

(4128 from Colombo District), (3564 from Central province), 3404 (from Southern province) (2668 from Sabaragamuwa) (2277 from Uva) (2056 from North Central) (2039 from North Western) (773 from Eastern) and 704 from Northern province. ·

47 schools and 40 pirivena institutes did not have a single student qualifying for the GCE A/L

(9 schools in Colombo), (3 schools in Homagama), (3 schools in Jayawardenapura), (12 schools in Galle, (7 schools in Ambalangoda), (13 schools in Ratnapura) ·

Of the 258,975 who sat the English language paper 63.18% failed ·

Of the 259,263 who sat the Mathematics paper 57.37% failed.

90% failed the (compulsory) geometry question ·

Of the 258,948 who sat the Science paper 51.65% had failed to secure even a simple pass.

What & who created this mess?

While there is no single source to the mess that has resulted the initial responsibility does lie with the Government’s education policy which has become a hobby horse of the Minister in charge and his Secretary. New syllabuses are introduced, structure and text books are changed, subjects that the teachers are clueless to teach, recruiting teachers who are not competent or even passionate about teaching & giving them jobs just to satisfy a political constituency – these are only some of the ills that have prevailed. These ill-considered decisions have over the years piled to create the drastic 2006 results with more surprises likely. Changes come suddenly that by the time the outstation schools are sent circulars on it a completely new policy has been once again introduced. Can we then blame these children for the mistakes that the adults have made? A thought that prevails amongst most is that the policy makers themselves are too old to see the needs of the younger generation or not concerned as they have alternate avenues for their children to pursue. We can well perceive that despite the startling figures those from the Colombo district who are rich enough will immediately afford another avenue for their child to pursue. That leaves the bulk of these failed children in the lurch. Mind you most of these children come from parents who juggle through the rising cost of living just to educate their children hopeful that they will at least have a better future. A country’s education system must meet the ultimate needs of the society that we live in. Age-old learning practices have no place in a realistic world. Educations forget that ultimately these children either enter university or secure jobs. In either case, combined with theory of education plenty of practical and common sense thinking needs to be nurtured during the early years of education. This is very much lacking in Sri Lanka. Our students are only taught to memorize notes, reproduce them in exams and aim to score top grades. Today people are not judged by the results on their educational papers. Therefore, we need to see that while the school syllabus is covered an equal amount of time and energy needs to be utilized by schools into programs that encourage children to think for themselves. It may be well and fine to always leave the blame with the politicians but when it comes to education, those in the education ministry as well as all the Principals, teachers and most of all the infamous consultants of education must shoulder equal blame. It is their inability to correctly present the mistakes of certain policy decisions for pure political mileage that have created the mess we are in today. To safeguard their position & perks they continuously “nod” in affirmative to all the wrongs that eventually become introduced to the education system of Sri Lanka. But then, in Sri Lanka is education important after all?

A joke often circulated is why study when one can easily become a politician today even having failed all 10 subjects in the GCE O/L and then preach to the public the importance of studies! But can all 21,813 students who failed the GCE O/L get cabinet portfolios? While taking the 2006 results as a wake up call, the Ministry of Education is earnestly requested to look at the figures in a realistic framework. Questions need to be realistically looked at and solutions need to be worked out.

It is now time for damage-control but please not another Minister for Disaster in Education! ·

True Sri Lanka needs teachers – but it does not need teachers looking for jobs and neither does Sri Lanka need teachers to fulfill promises made by politicians to win votes. · Competencies in Students & Teachers – if the 2006 results reveal that children are not competent it is because the teachers are not competent either. Not only are some teachers not competent to teach there are also many others who don’t know the very subject they have been given to teach and neither do they show an interest in learning. So what can you expect from teachers who simply teach what is in the syllabus gives without even finding out anything more on the subject? ·

Innovation and creativity – rarely can one teach such subjects but the western education systems introduce certain crafts and simple exercises that bring out a child’s creativity. Has the Ministry of Education ever thought of looking into this and finding out ways to nurture the creativity of a child through the different grades of study? Fancy syllabuses are useless and only subject to paper appeal. · Tuition classes spring like mushrooms throughout Sri Lanka. One would then expect excellent results. But then if the results reveal the poor state of affairs in the Education Ministry it also portrays the façade behind the tuition craze too. Ignorant parents today spend a bulk of their income on these classes. Some parents even send their children to tuition teachers for every sub-topic as well. Then there are also tuition teacher to cover homework given by schools. I suggested a while back that if the parent and the child cannot let go of the emotional attachment to tuition to counter the time/money spent on the road by introducing a separate tv channel, to get the best teacher for each subject (per different grade) and have them run through the syllabus on tv as though teaching a class. These could even be turned into CDs/Videos etc so that children could replay it when in doubt. The tv channel could even open an email system where feedback and questions could be diverted to the teachers. The private sector and banks can take a part in this as part of their social responsibility. · Let us now take the children; they too need to take accountability for their results. A syllabus for any grade is designed to be completed within a stipulated time. Provision has been given for all the extra curricular activities that schools are often involved with. While there are textbooks, there is also ample more avenues to learn something extra about what is in the textbooks. Today unlike during the yesteryear times of education, all one needs to do is search for information and it is available. But do children explore all possible avenues of learning? · Then there is the craze to run off for tuition. Quite often one sees that the tuition craze is really a means to show off ones latest fashionable attire, to meet and mingle with ones friends from both sexes, to sometimes play truant and occasionally see a film while one’s parents think that their children are glued to the books and listening intently to their tuition teacher. Many will have solutions and as a Ministry we can understand that everyone’s solution to the crisis cannot be answered. But, there is reason enough to realize that the Ministry needs to urgently sit down and address each point seriously. We are after all dealing with the future generation of Sri Lanka. As a nation it is our duty to see that all children should not only have a right to education but good education that would make him/her a good human being. Bringing in storming solutions is not the answer. Phase out the exercise so that children throughout the country will not be too affected by adverse changes in systems. Involve people, obtain their thoughts too. But please don’t wait for years to implement. The end need is not to gain political mileage but to ensure that Sri Lanka has a younger generation of “thinking people’ and not those who will get others to think for them.

Shenali Waduge

2007 World Forum on Early Care and Education

Simon Anurada — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:29:34 +0000

2007 World Forum on Early Care and Education

May 15 – 18, 2007 Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Over 700 early childhood administrators, trainers, caregivers, public officials, and advocates from 70+ countries will gather in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for World Forum 2007. At this seventh World Forum, delegates will exchange ideas about the quality of services for young children in diverse settings.

For more information visit : http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wf2007/

Who Signed Tara Harrold Agreement ?

Simon Anurada — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:10:31 +0000

Who Signed Tara Harrold Agreement ?

Is it Dr. Tara de Mel under the President Chandrika Kumarathunga or Dr. P.B. Jatyasundara under the President Mahinda Rajapakse. ?

According to informed sources Dr. P.B Jayasundara as the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance signed the so called “ Tara-Harrold Agreement”. It is important to notice that the President Mahinda Rajapakse is the Minister in-charge of the Ministry of Finance. According to our opinion there is no much issue in this agreement. But we have certain issues to be raised.

1) What is the agreement signed by Dr. PB and World Bank ( Tara Harrold Agreement)? . Why it is not published in Ministry of Education Web Sites for public information

2) JVP made a huge protest to this during CBK Period wasting millions for posters and other demonstrations. Why they were silent when it was signed during the Rajapakse regime?

3) Do Hon Ministers of Education agree that they have agreed on this agreement?

4) Why we waste such a huge amount of funds to maintain Education Bureaucracy in Sri Lanka when more than 50% students fail GCE O/L? .

5) Can’t we work together to liberalize this failed education system to provide true FREE Education?

A US $ 60 million grant, the World Bank’s highest for Sri Lanka in the second half of this year, will be offered to the Education Ministry to support its education development programs, World Bank Country Director Peter Harrold said.

“We are in the advanced stage of preparing this grant and it will be made available towards the end of this year,” he said.

Making the inaugural speech at a ceremony to launch the report Treasures of the Education System in Sri Lanka, a comprehensive and scientific analysis of Sri Lanka’s education system ever done by the leading funding body, its country director commended the efforts by the State to enhance quality, accessibility and standards in the fields of school and tertiary education levels.

He attributed the high level of literacy among rural masses and the awareness on social issues such as family planning as factors which reflect the country’s accessibility to basic education.

The Country Director however, stressed that the accessibility at the level of tertiary education needs improving.

“So we have to improve and preserve this level of education and accessibility to the remotest parts of the island,” Harrold said adding that this grant is to reinforce the government’s on-going efforts to improve the education sector. The grant is planned for four-year period from 2006 to 2010.

Education Secretary Dr. Tara de Mel noting that the government is acutely sensitive to the critical role education is playing in the economic growth and poverty reduction strategy in the country, said her aim was to ensure university access for all 100,000 students who qualify at the GCE Advanced Level.

She said the launch of this landmark report was timely as they were moving towards a more advanced cycle of education reforms, with rapid modernization and acceleration of development to reach global standards.

According to her, the program involves increased budgetary allocations, modernizing infrastructure to meet global standards, launching an advanced competency based curriculum, prioritizing investment mainly on IT, Science and Maths and introducing school based management from 2006.

It also proposes depoliticising school admissions, teacher transfers and the entire education system, she said.

Noting that bold leadership is needed for some decisive policy changes, unpopular but critical for developing the country’s education system to face the global challenges she said “today we are moving towards accreditation of the primary and secondary schools in the private sector” among other things. The report consisting five chapters and prepared by a team led by Dr. Harsha Aturupane, a senior economist of the World Bank, highlights a host of issues concerning the Sri Lankan education system that needs attention.

In the first chapter which provides an extensive statistical data, examines policies, enrolment and organisation of the education system while the second chapter presents a strong case on the economic and social benefits of investment in education.

The others focus on public investment and internal efficiency. The report lays the foundation for the World Bank’s future support to the local education sector.

ICT Literacy in Sri Lanka– The Truth

Coordinator — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:35:19 +0000

What happened to National ICT Education Drive ?

As we all agree ICT Literacy is considered as one of the very important components of the Education in the 21^st century. Since 1980s various attempts were made to bring computers into the school curriculum. Unfortunately only in 2004, ICT was introduced as a subject in Grade 12 (A/L) (GIT) and subject in O/L(OL-IT) in Sri Lanka. In 2005 Ministry of Education launched an ICT Literacy Drive proposing Department of Examination to conduct ICT Literacy Examination Island wide. According to this any Sri Lankan could sit for ICT Literacy Examination without any pre qualification. The proposed examination fee was SL Rupees 100/=. Unfortunately the new government stopped this important initiative.

It is very interesting that Daily News Editorial (14 May 2007) discusses the issue of ICT Literacy in Sri Lanka. For some reasons the term ICT is worded as ITC in some parts of the editorial. It may be a printing mistake. Editor of the Government Owned National Newspaper however tries to bring attention of general public to important aspects of ICT and particularly the importance of ICT Literacy. It is a surprise that Daily News Editor described the “ Nanasala” Project as a project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He had forgotten that “Nanasala” was the ICT Project initiated by President Mahinda Rajapakse when he functioned as the Prime Minister. When Ranil Wickremasinghe government initiated the “Regaining Sri Lanka” project “e-Sri Lanka” was one of the component. Mr. Milinda Moragoda was the minister in-charge (The Minister of Science and Technology ) of the project in 2003. He started VGK ( Vishwa Ghana Kendra) – telecenter project and when Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse became the Prime Minister then President CBK decided to handover e-Sri Lanka project to him. Then Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse decided to rename the VGK Project as Nanasala Project in 2004. Unfortunately After 3 years of this popular project, Editor of Daily News is unaware of this story. A responsible editor should do his research properly before publishing his editorial. Any way we should thank him for bringing this subject to his editorial.

We would like to bring the attention of the Editor, Daily News and general public on this issue with the following information.

ICT Professionals of Sri Lanka was at the Presidents House where the President CBK declared the National ICT Education Drive on 12^th August 2005. According to this program it was planned to have ICT Literacy Examinations according to the following schedule:

The dates for ICT Literacy & ICT Applications have scheduled by the Department of Examinations.
26th August 2006 for ICT Literacy Certificate

27th August 2006 for ICT Application Certificate

Unfortunately the Ministry of Education or Department of Education or the office of the President has not taken necessary steps to continue with the following National ICT Literacy Program.

Information available on this is given in the following URL.

http://www.education.gov.lk/news_12.php

The National ICT Education Drive is one of the key initiatives or elements of the Education Reforms process introduced by the Ministry of Education aiming at producing a global citizen with local values who can face challenges of the new knowledge based society.

The National ICT Education Drive consists of three major components.

• ICT Education for Schools

• ICT Education for Universities

• ICT Education for All

ICT Education for schools component aims at integrating ICT into the school curriculum.

ICT for Schools programme based components:

• ICT for Advanced Level

• ICT for Ordinary Level

• ICT for Junior Secondary Level

• ICT for Primary Level

In introducing ICT into the school curriculum, the Ministry has developed two approaches:

• ICT as a subject

• ICT as a tool in learning and information handling

One of the key achievements of this programme is the introduction of General Information Technology (GIT) as a common subject for Grade 12 students in the GCE Advanced Level. The National Examination for GIT will be held for the first time on 21st August 2005. The examination will be conducted by the Department of Examinations Island wide. More than 80,000 students have applied for this examination.

Most of the work has been completed to introduce ICT as a technical subject in GCE (O/L) commencing January 2006.

The necessary planning has been completed to introduce ICT into Junior Secondary (Grades 6-9) and primary (Grade 1-5) levels.

These programmes follow the policy framework approved by the Government in 2001 and various programmes such as teacher training, electronic education content development, ICT students associations and various other initiatives are in action to support them.

In addition to Government funding, these programmes are funded by various donors.

ICT Education for Universities is the second component of the National ICT Education Drive to strengthen the ICT involvement in the University Education.

At present ICT is used highly in the ICT or Computer Science and Engineering Departments.

ICT in non-ICT degree programme need to improve in their respective degree programmes making graduates passing out from these departments more employable.

Recently University academics represently ICT facilities and departments of the University sector have prepared a policy framework and an action plan to improve ICT Education in a big way for all under graduates. Steps will be taken to use ICT extensively in teaching and research in the University sector.

ICT Education for all is the third component of this National Drive aiming at creating an ICT cultural in Sri Lanka.

The Ministry of Education has taken all necessary steps to introduce a National Examination in ICT open to the general public. This examination “Sri Lanka ICT Education” will be conducted by the Department of Examinations.

Sri Lanka ICT Examination consists of three levels of certificates.

• ICT Literacy Certificate

• ICT Application Certificate

• ICT Vocational (Foundation) Certificate

The dates for ICT Literacy & ICT Applications have scheduled by the Department of Examinations.

26th August 2006 for ICT Literacy Certificate

27th August 2006 for ICT Application Certificate

The Ministry is aiming at making 50% of the Sri Lankan population ICT literate by the year 2010.

Science and Tech for a Service Economy

Coordinator — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 02:35:11 +0000

What does S&T capacity mean for a small developing country such as Sri Lanka? My conversations with distinguished scientist and educator, Prof. Kamini Mendis, helped me develop some working hypotheses for my research and also spew out some ideas for action.

Prof. Kamini Mendis is in town for a short holiday. She is currently the Senior Advisor to the Roll Back Malaria Program at the World Health Organization (WHO). She moved to WHO after an illustrious career as a professor of Parasitology at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Colombo where she published a record number of papers and graduated over 25 PhDs. I am sure her influence on undergraduate education was equally important.

I did not know Kamini in person but I was familiar with her work through my own research on researchers. As part of my work on a US National Science Foundation funded project on “Best Practices in North-South Collaborations” she was on the top of my list of researchers to interview. I was working off of a database of publications from the Science Citation Index for 1993-2002 with in the address field. That dataset may not cover the full output of researchers in Sri Lanka, but it gives me sufficient information to capture what I call the “top researchers from with the most local impact”.

My working definition of a top researcher is someone who has published 5 or more articles in SCI journals during the period 1993-2002, had more local collaborators than foreign collaborators, and graduated at least 5 local PhDs during that period. I am using the number of PhDs produced as a proxy indicator of other aspects of local capacity building.

My conversations with Kamini reinforced my working hypothesis that for countries such as Sri Lanka where there is hardly an industrial base that can productively absorb advanced know-how, the most valuable output of your research is the ‘people’ you influence through your work. Kamini can look back with pride at her own sphere of influence and see how that sphere continues to expand through the good work done by those she has influenced. (I am not going to list them here since I am still working to identify her mentees and develop some measure of their contributions).

Kamini has done her part in Sri Lanka and now has moved into the international arena. Should she have stayed here and, say, developed a Center of Excellence in Malaria Research for? The more I look at the data and the more I talk to people, the fewer reasons I find to advocate for Centers of Excellence for Sri Lanka. Take Malaria. During the 1993-2002 period, Sri Lanka published 15 papers on Malaria related topics, but then Thailand published 251 papers during the same period. Thailand has about three times the population and twice the GDP as Sri Lanka. These differences do not explain a difference of 15-fold in productivity. I need to look more in detail at Thailand’s Malaria research. But the question is why can’t Sri Lanka develop centers of excellence even when we have capable people.

The more important question is "How else can Sri Lanka develop its capacity to deal with an increasingly knowledge-based/ technology-based world?". Kamini said that there is something about Sri Lankans that makes it difficult to bring them under a system or an organization. But then her coauthorships point to several strong and productive alliances with colleagues from other universities and other research centers. What she probably meant was the inability of the Malaria researchers in Sri Lanka to make a more organized effort.

I prefer to call our inability to organize ourselves as “individualism” and look at the positive side of our “individualism”.

The services sector was the fastest growing sector in Sri Lanka’s economy in 2003 (Central Bank of , Annual Report 2003). Telecommunication services grew at 17%. Telecom sector is essentially a buy-and-install driven sector. The backbone (wired or wireless networks, switches etc) and peripherals (telephones, cell phones) are put together to provide services. What we need for further growth in telecommunications are people who can create jobs using existing technology (Gamage and Samarajiva paper). Similarly for other services such as banking, accounting and healthcare and education.

Instead of looking at research as an organized activity that provides technical know-how to drive a traditional manufacturing economy we should look at research as an individually-driven activity that would continue to enrich a well–spring of analytical and innovative minds that would drive a service economy. In a global environment, the possibilities for growth in services are endless if our people have the right mindset. Right now our economy is partly carried on the shoulders of unskilled women who are taking their services to the Middle East. We need to do more services at a higher skill level from here.

Almost all the 25 or more individuals who were influenced by the top quality research work that was led by Kamini are indeed continuing to enrich the well-spring. In fact, during the last few months I have come to know some of them as committed university teachers who are ready to go the extra mile to make their teaching better. Malaria research in Sri Lanka may be on the downside because of the dwindling number of malaria cases and other reasons, but that does not matter. What matters is that the research that was done has produced a cadre of people who can excel in whatever they do. For a small a country like Sri Lanka, it is the process and people that matter, not institutionalization.

The Presidential awards that were initiated by Professor A Kovoor whereby researchers receive Rs: 100,000, I believe, for each SCI paper, has clearly led to a growth in SCI publications by individual researchers in (Upali Samarajeewa, unpublished work). What we need to do is to take the next step and recognize those who mentor junior colleagues and students (post-graduate and undergraduate).

Incentives are not enough. We need better infrastructure. Reliable and cheaper electricity is a must for anything. We can not also talk about any knowledge-driven activity without reliable and always-on internet for our universities. LEARN network has played its role but it is time for something else. A survey by Thrishantha Nanayakkara on research culture in Sri Lanka is a also source for more ideas for action (The survey and the survey results were on Lacnet.org but not anymore).

Sri Lankan Geologist makes the news

Coordinator — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 04:03:36 +0000

A Sri Lankan Geologist, Prof. CB Dissanayake has just been recognized as a leader in research by no less a body than the editorial board of ‘Science’, one of the most prestigious journals in the world. During 2005, Science celebrates the 125th anniversary of the publication of its first issue with a special essay series, inviting researchers from around the world to provide a regional view of the scientific enterprise. The journal has invited Prof. Chandra Dissanyake of the Geology Department in the University of Perdeniya to write the essay for the month of August under the theme Global Voices of Science. His essay is titled "Of Stones and Health: Medical Geology in Sri Lanka ".

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/309/5736/883?etoc

Congratulations to Prof. Dissanayake and his team at the University of Perdeniya. We are proud of you.

It is not often we can say something nice about our universities. These are institutions that can not even keep to an academic calendar. They close at a moments notice and stay closed for indefinite lengths of time. The inability to keep a calendar is a manifestation of many ills of the system and is also the cause many other disfunctionalites of the system. Who is to be blamed? That is another blog for another time. This blog is for praising those who do quality work in the middle of inefficiency, incompetence, lethargy and other assorted ills of others.

According to the Science Citation Index, an index of recognized science journals from around the world, Sri lankan institutions published 1250 items in international journals during the 1993 to 2002 period. Of these publications approximately 70% involve the universities. A notable feature of these publications is that 90% of them fall into one of the following -Clinical Medical Research, Malaria & Filaria, Bioactivity of Natural Products, Natural Resource Studies and Applied Physics. Our faculty seem to succeed in a highly competitive world of global academic publishing by finding the appropriate niches for themselves.

Considering our strengths in both Natural Resource Studies and Clinical Research, Medical Geology has a lot of potential to enthuse young faculty members from across disciplines to do research. Very importantly, this type of interdisciplinary research has a lot of potential for involvement of social science and even management and humanities faculty members. Sri Lanka’s reocord of publications in the social science citation indexed journals is rather poor. During 1999 to 2002, Sri Lanka averaged only 12 publications per year and 50% of all publications originated from the Faculties of Medicine! Collaborations across disciplines can bring about benefits for all concerned.