This article appeared in The Island on Wednesday 2nd September 2009.
I hope I won’t be accused of being an alarmist when I say that our education system is like a patient who has reached the crisis stage in his or her illness, i.e., the turning point at which the patient’s condition will suddenly change for better or for worse. This is how many concerned people may view the situation at present. It is a bleak impression that is being burnt into our collective consciousness by, among other things, the rash of examination-related incidents which seem acts of crass negligence and dereliction of duty by those paid by the public for doing the work they are entrusted with. The errors reported in the media would sound very stupid and improbable under normal conditions. Questions had been set which were open to criticism in terms of their meaning and appropriateness. Then, there was the case of the occurrence of some questions in a trial paper set by a tuition master in the south for his students allegedly later appearing in an AL paper. This matter was raised in Parliament by an opposition MP, but the charge was later met with a vehement denial of any ‘leak of the paper’. I wonder whether the authorities were able to make this denial convincing enough to the concerned public, before it was apparently swept under the carpet, though I don’t doubt that the dismissal of the charge was based on clear, acceptable evidence. Perhaps, the charge should have been more explicitly refuted. Next, there were rumours about incidents of copying (though I saw none reported in the media). A rumour circulating among some AL students and their parents was that at a particular exam centre set up at a premiere boys’ school there was significant copying during certain science papers where some students copied off a book that passed from hand to hand under the very nose of the invigilator who turned a blind eye to the cheating. (This of course is mere hearsay; I cannot provide any authority for it; but there’s no smoke without fire, as the saying goes. I decided to mention this to show that copying too could probably be included in the list of allegations.)
The ideas expressed in this essay are my personal views which, I believe, many others would share. I am voicing them here as a civic minded person in the hope that the exercise may in some small way contribute towards the amelioration of the educational prospects of our country. The essay should not be construed as an indictment of the persons handling the subject at the highest level. My opinion is that they are doing a difficult job as efficiently as the circumstances permit. The malaise that education suffers from in common with the rest of our public service is not of their making, but the evil legacy of decades of politicization of education and the resultant mismanagement under different regimes.
The errors in question papers, and numerous other lapses reported in the media, and also those unreported, but rumoured among the general public, seem so stupid and unlikely under normal circumstances, unless intentionally contrived, that they would naturally prompt many to suspect sabotage by unscrupulous elements among educational personnel both at the national and provincial levels against the government at the expense of our innocent children.. Whether such errors and lapses were acts of sabotage or genuine, unintended shortcomings is something that must be thoroughly investigated; and if there is reason to believe that offences have been committed, the individuals responsible must be punished, and the victims compensated in an appropriate manner.
In the absence of such investigations, to blame these glaring errors, and acts of commission and omission on supposed saboteurs in the department among those appointed to their posts in the past through political patronage by the main party in the opposition today is worse than an unsatisfactory answer to the problem, for it is a charge that could be invariably leveled back against the party currently in power, in the event of some reversal of fortune in the future, because, as far as we can remember, both the major parties have resorted to the practice of gratifying political supporters by appointing them to state institutions, at least in some cases irrespective of their qualifications.
The trading of charges and countercharges between the ruling party and the opposition has been a traditional ploy used by politicians to hide their own failures. This is due to the fact that politicians in general are mostly concerned with gaining and remaining in power whatever national interest demands. Education is one subject that must be treated as a vital national issue. Educational policies must be decided on, and formulated in consultation with the opposition so that periodic regime changes that are usual in a functioning democracy do not disrupt the smooth functioning of the system.
The abysmal inefficiency of our education system so plainly revealed in numerous crises brought to our notice by the media (school admission fiascoes, bribe taking school authorities, blunders in test papers, school textbooks of inferior quality, political patronage in teacher appointments and transfers, mismatch between the courses especially at the higher education level and the real needs outside, hooliganism among students who allow themselves to be manipulated by discredited politicians, and so on) cannot be obviated by the increasing number of new institutions opened, or fresh recruits absorbed into the system.
This state of affairs has left an immense vacuum, which private entrepreneurs are trying to fill with or (mostly) without government involvement. The economic losses or gains of this unofficial ‘privatization’ of education still remain to be calculated. What is certain, however, is that the state is in danger of losing its initiative in providing the nation with the proper education it needs to businesspersons, whose altruism or patriotism cannot be guaranteed.
There is a growing, already massive, parallel education system in the form of pre-schools, international schools, private tuition centres, and tertiary education institutions affiliated to foreign universities. These too run on wealth produced within the country. And it behoves the government to check that this kind of involuntary (total or partial) duplication of costs that the nation is called upon to bear is worth it, and that the country gets a fair return for its money.
Perhaps, private involvement in education is unavoidable in our present circumstances, (and privatization of education should not be treated as necessarily bad), but the state should not relinquish its fundamental responsibility for the education of the nation’s young. Since education is a matter of national importance it should not be entirely or even predominantly left to private enterprise. The government must properly regulate it so as to turn it into a useful adjunct to the state education system for the purpose of pursuing national educational goals set by the state.
The recent eruptions should be treated as the latest eye-openers to us in this context. Trying out palliatives without removing the root causes of the disease – in the form of ad hoc measures to make the symptoms disappear temporarily – is no solution. There is much more than meets the eye here. To completely reverse the downward trend in education will involve nothing less than our wholehearted commitment to a distinct, nonpolitical, national programme of reformation formulated through the consensual participation of all.
This might be a tall order. But it must be fulfilled for the sake of our children. However, we need not wait until that object is completely realized to initiate a meaningful rehabilitation of education. We can begin with the largest, most vital, most enduring factor of all in this connection: the management of the workforce, the human resources, i.e. the teachers and the administrators, that correspond to the soldiers, sailors, and the air force personnel and their officers who did the actual fighting in the battlefield against the terrorists in the recent civil war.
The possible way forward has already been demonstrated by the manner in which the successful military campaign against terrorism was handled by President Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse. He defined the government’s policy, provided the necessary executive direction, and entrusted the job to a handful of handpicked ‘technocrats’ (read ‘military experts’ in this case); the latter in turn inspired and led an army of 100,000 and other defence personnel on a heroic mission for the sake of a well conceived, invaluable, sacred, national cause until ultimate victory was achieved.
Education is a sacred cause of the same order. In fact, it will exercise more influence than the war on the generations to come, and will be on a much larger scale too, as its theatre of operations will be the whole of the island. However, it will be comparatively less expensive to the country. What is to be done basically is mobilizing the already available human and material resources. Like such matters as national defence and health, education is a subject that should not be entirely delegated to provincial control (at least as long as the present conditions prevail). Education must be centrally planned and implemented, with a degree of decentralization in certain areas such as teacher appointments, and transfers within the provinces, conduct of term tests, etc. subject to the central government’s approval.
The existing managerial hierarchy can be used with a few adjustments where necessary under the central authority of the minister of education. His responsibility will be as usual to execute the educational policy of the government, and provide the necessary financial wherewithal., and leave the management to a team of educational experts who are also good administrators, not dilettantes, or non-playing captains from other fields. All administrators must be people who had previously served as teachers at some level.
A prime responsibility of the establishment is to do everything possible to keep the officers and the teachers contented, subject of course to the inevitable economic constraints that a developing country like ours must face. It is only then that we could expect a high level of performance from them.
A mechanism for regular supervision and assessment of the teachers must be built into the system. The supervisor should not project himself or herself, or be seen, as an adversary by the teachers, but as a guide and a collaborator. The supervisor on any particular occasion could be the school head, a regional education officer, or a higher authority (all of whom are a part of the supervisory mechanism mentioned earlier). Each encounter with the supervisor should be a pleasant experience for the teacher, and an opportunity for further education and professional development. This I would describe as ‘collaborative supervision’.
It must be made compulsory for teachers to constantly update their knowledge, both in terms of their subject knowledge, and professional expertise. This should be ensured through short periodic tests, and interviews (which could be conducted during the supervisor’s visit).
Good performance must be rewarded through promotion to higher levels of the service, public commendation, or monetary benefits in addition to normal remuneration (any one or a combination of these as appropriate). When good performance is rewarded thus, unsatisfactory performance will be automatically punished, for such good prospects will be unachievable through means other than professional conduct.
Education, like the health service, is especially susceptible to financial exploitation by the unscrupulous. There are no quick fixes, and money should not be squandered on such. What I feel is that a lot can be achieved in education with the resources we already have plus a little more money which we certainly can afford to spend without much difficulty.
Professionalism instead of politics should be our slogan.
Rohana R. Wasala
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