Editorial

3rd August 1997

Open the book fully

Education being a fundamental right and vital factor in any so ciety is a national issue, not a party or personal matter. Thus we welcome Education Minister Richard Pathirana’s move to put the proposed reforms for further debate in Parliament and elsewhere, so that some national consensus could be reached.

Frankly, neither the media nor the public appear to know much about these reforms which to all intents and purposes are for the betterment of educational levels in Sri Lanka. We have been told that the Education Commission sitting to a detailed study have attempted to bring educational levels in this country on par with standards prevalent in the modern world and to bring them in line with the requirements of our own country.

What is not so welcome, however, has been the brutal suppression recently of student protesters by baton charging policemen who backed up their assault using water cannon and tear gas jets mounted on trucks.

President Kumaratunga who personally studied the situation after she returned from Britain, has rapped the police chief for overreacting and getting rough with student demonstrators outside the Fort Railway Station last Wednesday. While the crime rate is soaring, the police appear to be quite smart at beating up children.

The timing of this assault is particularly unfortunate because of the sensitivity of the issues that have provoked it coming in the wake of reports - unconfirmed though they are still - that none other than the President on her recent trip to Britain was perhaps,and even understandably, looking into what avenues would be available in the sphere of higher education for her children in that country rather than for them to pursue higher studies in our country’s educational institutions.We now hear that the President has pulled up the IGP.

Sri Lanka has correctly placed education on top priority ever since we regained political control of our own affairs even before Independence. Free education and later free text books, free school uniforms, free buns and food coupons, all these showed a commitment towards educating our people.

That is why Sri Lanka had Asia’s best or at least second best literacy rate. Up to the 1960s we had the best universities in this part of the world. Unfortunately these could not be translated into actual benefits for the whole country. The brain drain which started in the 1970s continues and the thirst for education cannot be quenched by our educational system or institutions here.

We cannot imagine that whatever reforms are contemplated would arrest the ever increasing numbers of youth wanting to flee this country both for education and employment.

The economy is just not throwing up the necessary jobs and the lucrative salaries found elsewhere in the world. But we hope that some steps will be taken at least to reduce the “wastage” of our youth to foreign lands.

After initial expense in educating many, the benefits have accrued to other nations. Sometimes it has helped Sri Lankans who have been helped by other Sri Lankans already in distinguished and influential positions abroad. But the odds would be a net loss as against a net gain.

The way towards a re-think in education reforms is not by hosing down the enthusiasm of those protesting or shooting them with bullets or tear-gas but by way of throwing the discussion to a wider audience of an interested public.

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