Courtesy - The Island By Fr Chryso Pieris SJ
When I look back nostalgically at my childhood and compare it with the tight school and tuition schedules of present day children who do not have any free time during the whole day to be carefree, noisy, joyful children full of energy, I feel very sad. This sadness, I felt for the tragic loss of childhood joys of modern children, has been gnawing and irritating me for a long time because it is a highly complex problem involving every aspect of our social, economic and political life with no easy solution in sight. (My childhood came to an end more than fifty years ago when I took the O/L examination in December 1959.) Mulling over this problem and other related problems of education in our country, finally, I have decide to share it with you, who bother to read what I write, and discuss the possibility of restoring the joys of childhood back to our children.
To begin with let us clarify some ideas about our schools. Who is the central most important person in the school, without whom there is no school? The easy and simple answer is it is the child-student. Absolutely everything and everybody in the school must be for her/him; nothing, nobody not the principal or the teacher not even the Election-Commissioner or the President of the country can take precedence and put the child-student in the second place and put her/him out of the school whenever they feel like it. Everybody in the school and those serving in the Education Department and the Ministry are at the service of the students, ready always to cater to the students’ needs and only students’ needs and nobody else’s.
Read moreWhat is the most important activity of the student in the school? Is it the morning assembly where the principal delivers a harangue for hours on end keeping the children standing in the sun? No. It is a sheer waste of children’s energy and valuable time. Is it preparing for some games, sports, fine arts or festive activity? No. All of them are extra-curricular activities and school hours are definitely not to be used for them. The most important activity of the student in the school is, being seated in the classroom with the teacher and other students, learning. The most important place, I’d almost say the most sacred place, in the school is the classroom where there is a teacher teaching and students learning. This is the core activity and the very essence of the school. This is the gauge by which we can measure the efficiency of a school. If during the school hours there are teachers teaching in all the classrooms then the school is 100% efficient. If only half the classrooms have teachers the efficiency of the school is not 50%. It will be much less for half of the school would be making so much noise that the other half cannot concentrate on their studies. The success of the Principal is gauged primarily by his ability to get all the teachers to be in their classrooms teaching. A famous disciplinarian, a veteran principal, once told me that the secret of a successful school is to get the teachers to come to school on time and be ready to receive the children when they arrive in their classrooms after the brief morning assembly. Then the school begins to hum like a well oiled, finely tuned engine.
These two criteria, (a) the centrality of the student in the school and (b) the essential activity of functioning classrooms from the start till the end of the school time table, are violated most of the time in our schools. Pulling the student out of the classroom, for whatever reason, is a crime against the student and a violation of her/his right to education. These are the root causes of what is wrong with our schools. During the recently held LG polls in Galle a school lost seven school days. The urgent and grave reason given was that the school was needed for counting the ballots of the LG polls. Is this some sort of dire emergency situation? Has a Tsunami struck Galle? What about all the huge government buildings in the town? What about the enormous multi-storied new District Secretariat? Why does this government disrupt the studies of more than 3500 students for seven days? Because this government does not care two hoots what happens to the children of this school. Why didn’t the principal and the teachers stand up to the government officers and refuse to give the school and protect their students’ right to education? Why didn’t the parents object to this move? A sacred ‘puja bumi’ was desecrated. Of course now they will say they would make up for those lost days with extra classes. Will the Department, the Ministry bother to monitor that? Certainly not the parents who are like the proverbial monkeys; they hear no wrong, they see no wrong and they shut up. This is not the first time either. This school is always an easy victim of callous government interference. The school administration seems to be more government friendly than student friendly. I will not be surprised if in the next school term too the students will lose seven more school days for another undemocratic, crooked, homicidal election. That is a very sad situation. The core values of a school are the non-negotiable importance and the centrality of the student and the functioning classroom. Both are easily allowed to be negated. Since most of the schools are guilty of these crimes, denying children’s education, naturally, tuition classes mushroom everywhere and flourish.
Let us go back to the history of our educational system. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries that implemented successfully Free Education where the fundamental human right to education was recognized, respected and applied. In that regard it was the miracle of Asia and the envy of the world. In 1938 the education system in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was made free following the granting of universal franchise in 1931. The late Hon. Dr C.W.W. Kannangara took the initiative in establishing free education when he was the Minister of Education. Under this initiative the government established Madhya Maha Vidyalayas (Central Colleges) that were scattered around the island to provide education to all. We, as a country, are justifiably proud of it while in India, ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act’ or ‘Right to Education Act’ (RTE) has come into effect only from April 1, 2010.In 1942 a special committee was appointed to observe the education system and among the suggestions that followed, the following still play an important role: #Make available to all children a good education free of charge, so that education ceases to be a commodity purchasable only by the urban affluent. #Make national languages the media of instruction in place of English so that opportunities for higher education, lucrative employment open only to a small number of the urban affluent, would become available to others as well.
#Rationalize the school system so that educational provision is adequate, efficient and economical. #Ensure that every child is provided with instruction in the religion of her/his parents. #Protect teachers from exploitation by managers of schools. #Make adequate provision for adult education. After independence, the number of schools and the literacy rate of the people substantially increased. According to the Ministry of Statistics, today there are approximately 9,830 public schools serving close to 4,030,000 students, all around the island.
But in 1977, alas! The United National Party initiated the unraveling of this great system of education by introducing open market economy and privatization and deregulation of public enterprises. Poor Dr Kannangara must have hung his head in shame and despair, where ever he was, and shed tears. The neo-liberal, anti-poor, globalization (merchandizing and commercializing everything under the sun, like education, health care and even water!) which invaded Sri Lanka in 1977 with its robber barons, never gave up trying to undermine our system of free education and restrict education only to the rich. Currently there are 66 Private schools (registered before 1960 and not since then) of these, 33 non-fee-levying Assisted Private Schools (also known as semi-government schools) and 33 fee levying autonomous Private Schools but all of them are a mere 0.67% of the total number of schools. International schools in Sri Lanka are mainly for the expatriate community but anyone with the ability and willingness to pay high tuition fees can join these schools. Starting in the late 1980s these schools have no regulation or control by the Ministry of Education as it comes under the Board of Investment (BOI). Discipline is not the strong point in these schools. But the worst side effect of the corroding influence of post ’77 educational trend is the mushrooming of tuition classes. Due to the high competitive nature of exams such as Year 5, GCE O/L and GCE A/L and due to the lamentable lack of proper teaching in the regular schools, parents seek additional help at home and at group/mass classes to improve their children’s grades and performance. In recent years tuition has become a very lucrative and a well organized commercial enterprise. These tuition classes are the enemy No. 1 of our children. They have robbed our children of their childhood. At the end of the day children simply do not have the energy or the time to run, laugh, shout and play which relaxed behavior is the privilege and joy of childhood. The general lack of such relaxed behavior, I suspect, will stunt the all round physical, mental and emotional growth of our children.
How can we restore the lost childhood of today’s children is the most important but difficult problem to solve. The solution, I feel, is in the hands of our school administration and the parents of the children. To begin with our people must appreciate the priceless treasure they have in our system of Free Education. Some Indian leaders who had come to Ceylon at the time of Mr Kannangara, I read somewhere, had said if he was in India he would have been divinized and worshipped. What is tragic is that the very people who are undermining Free Education are those who benefitted most from it. What crass ingratitude! If the parents and school administration are not protecting the right to education of their children, if the fence and the bund are destroying the rice field, then who can redeem our children? Are we to conclude that giving Free Education to the people of Sri Lanka was like throwing pearls before swine? Before hastening to a conclusion like that let us analyze the problem and discern ways and means to restore the free time and the joy of childhood to our children.
The solution certainly is not in the hands of tuition masters or tuition organizations. They are only supplying to a demand. There is no point in prohibiting tuition classes. They will become illegal and go underground and become still more expensive. What do the children get from tuition classes? They get knowledge or covering of their syllabuses to be qualified to face the examinations. The answer is obvious. What the tuition classes are doing must be given to the children in the school itself. That was what the schools did during our childhood. Nobody in my class went for tuition. After school we were like free birds, to enjoy ourselves as we liked. And did we enjoy ourselves! Our parents had a time to get us back home at least for supper. So the solution is now in the hands of the school administration and teachers. But some of those teachers are the tuition masters! Now other problems crop up like why do the teachers teach, sometimes own class students, after school? Of course, it is to earn a little more money. Though the salaries of school teachers have improved, yet, it must be admitted that today’s rising cost of living is felt very much by everybody including teachers. Now let us bring the parents in to the solution of the problem. The parents have to spend quite a substantial amount to send children to tuition classes with unbelievably exorbitant fees for the A/L students. The parents and the school administration have to discuss the matter and strike a deal in the manner I shall elucidate. The school administration and the teachers have to give a solemn pledge to the parents that they will not waste a minute of the school time table and teach the students to the best of their ability, covering all the syllabuses and get them fully ready to face successfully the three main examinations, Year Five, O/L and A/L. In other words make the school curriculum the tuition classes. This will make tuition classes redundant. Our children will be free after school to enjoy their lovely childhood to their hearts’ content. Another plus would be that the discipline in the school will be raised to a high level and also the tired out teachers will have a relaxing time at home with their family instead of running from tuition class to tuition class. The parents, who are now relieved of spending money on tuition classes, will promise to give a monthly incentive to all the teachers and even the minor staff of the school. The parents will have to pay less than half of what they paid for tuition classes. (I did a rough calculation for the school mentioned above and it came to just Rs 500/- monthly per child to pay Rs 10,000/- per head per month to the whole staff including the minor staff.) If the parents and the teachers of a school can strike this deal in all honesty, commitment and charity towards our children with the primary aim of restoring their childhood back to them and safeguarding free education, I consider them to be women and men of the stature of Dr C.W.W. Kannangara.
Consider these plus points in this scheme if implemented. 1. Children regaining their childhood which I consider their due in justice to them. 2. Teachers getting an extra payment and free time after school. 3. School becoming efficient and well disciplined. 4. Parents spending less on education of their children and knowing they are safer at home than walking around from tuition class to tuition class in unknown alleys and back streets of the town. 5. Safeguarding our great system of free education for future generations. May our children enjoy their childhood and may free education in our country flourish for ever.
