Education: Meeds and needs

Editorial-June 26, 2013

Sri Lanka has been able to reduce the number of out-of-school children to two percent, according to a UNICEF study, as we reported yesterday. There were 57 million children out of school worldwide in 2011, according to the latest UNICEF data. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than one half of them. About 27 per cent of those unfortunate children are said to be living in South and West Asia.

For a developing country like Sri Lanka, keeping the number of out-of-school children at that level is no mean achievement, which has rightly been attributed to our free education system. Let the statues of the visionary statesman, C. W. W. Kannangara, who fought quite a battle against numerous odds to make free education a reality, be covered with fragrant flowers! However, there is room for improvement and our goal should be to ensure that each and every child attends school.

Similarly, everything possible needs to be done to make schools real seats of learning. Children will achieve hardly anything by attending school unless a well-rounded education is imparted to them.

Our official literacy rate is said to be 96 per cent. This, no doubt, is reasonably high for a developing country, but the question is how reliable it is as an indicator of our functional literacy. In May 2007, we pointed out in an editorial titled, Towards a nation of maths-haters and ignoramuses, that the National Education Commission (NEC) had, in a survey conducted with the participation of 4, 054 students from 70 schools representing all provinces, except the North and the East, revealed that 18 per cent of the sixth graders could not write at all! The NEC found that 28 per cent of the tenth graders could not write legibly and only 35 per cent of them could take down a passage dictated to them. Of the sixth graders concerned, only 41 per cent were at a satisfactory level of performance.

On Dec. 17, 2008, we pointed out in these columns that the failure rate in the GCE (O/L) mathematics was shocking; it stood at 57%, second only to that in English—63.18%. About 52% of candidates had crashed in Science. Pointing out that 51% of students had failed the whole examination we asked what the future held for a country where so many children failed in Mathematics, Science and the international language. This is the harsh reality we ought to come to terms with instead of preening ourselves on our high literacy rate.

The Education Ministry now tells us that the situation has improved and 65% candidates passed the GCE O/L examination in 2012 and the failure rates in Mathematics, Science and English have come down to 45%, 32% and 52% respectively. We hope that the Education Department has not lowered the bar to bring about this improvement.

In December 2008, the results of a teachers’ examination conducted a few weeks back prompted us to comment on the standards of teaching in the state-run schools. Thousands of teachers who had sat that examination seeking career advancement as principals (Grade II) could not score more than ten to fifteen marks! What really took the cake was that some of those teachers aspiring to be school heads had mistaken Balangoda Maanawaya or the prehistoric Balangoda Man referred to in a question for the late Most Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maithriya Thera! Calling that blunder a posthumous affront to the great monk who did Sri Lanka proud we argued that not even the three hundred and thirty million devas believed to inhabit this thrice blessed land would be able to save our children from such teachers!

One must not make the mistake of tarring all teachers with the same brush as the aforesaid lot. But, the poor performance of students and the deterioration of teaching standards are issues that should receive the attention of not only politicians but also teachers’ unions which go into the attack mode at the drop of a hat.

The education sector, as we keep saying, is in a mess from Grade One admissions to university entrance and even beyond. Out of a total of 140, 000 students who clear the GCE A/L barrier only 23, 000 (16%) are admitted to national universities for want of resources, both human and physical. About 117, 000 children who qualify for university entrance are callously left out for no fault of theirs. Little surprise that youth unrest finds expression in violent uprisings from time to time.

So, instead of crowing about the low percentage of out-of-school children and success rates at public exams, it is high time the government went full steam ahead to develop the education sector with the national university system expanded and equipped to accommodate many more students.