Another blunder in the offing: Abolishing Grade five scholarship exam

By the late 1940s,Sri Lanka had a formidable network of English medium schools operated by the colonial government, missionaries, Buddhist and other faith based organizations. Contrary to the bunkum that was later advanced as a means of justifying the post-independent demolishing of this system, those facilities were spread out in the country; they were found even in the most unlikely corners. There was one in a few miles from my ancestral village. It was called Rohana Vidyalaya, my great grand aunt went there, learnt her English and became a civil servant.   

There was a more even distribution of English medium schools then, than mushrooming but, still city concentrated International schools today.Those facilities should have been nurtured and invested in. Instead, the indigenous elites who were experimenting with the policy making of the nation at the gasp of independence had other plans. Along with the much lauded Free Education Bill, they introduced a compulsory swabasha education policy. The policy was first confined to the primary level, and through a disingenuous intervention of JR Jayawardene, it was extended to the secondary level. By 1956, the entire school system came under the Swabhashaeducation policy (Not SWRD Bandaranaike’s making, but the coming of the age of the phased out implementation of the new policy).  

What happened since then is history. The gradual deterioration of an entire nation, the quality of its state, administrative and policy-making apparatus, economic stagnation, low skilled workforce, and overall bastardisation of society and politics, all have their roots in that shortsighted decision.  

This epic post independent failure was not unique to Sri Lanka: It happened from India to Nigeria in one or more area. However, Sri Lanka is unique for its political and policy leaders have a fetish in dismantling things, without any clue with what it would be replaced.  

Another blunder that is in the offing right now is the proposal to abolish the grade five scholarship exam. President Maithripala Sirisena has said he is agreeable to abolish the Grade five scholarship exam. Earlier, Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said the Grade five scholarship exam would no longer be compulsory and would be used only for the granting of scholarships.  

Instead of using the Grade five scholarship exam as the yardstick for admission to the popular schools, the government is considering to reintroduce admission tests for popular schools. The intention is to reduce the competition and thus the stress on young students. Mr. Kariyawasam has dismissed the scholarship exam as a ‘ memory test’. (He also once told a press conference that Lord Nelson fought and won the World War II!).  

Why the Grade five scholarship exam exists is for a very simple reason: Not every student can have a father who is a Royalist or a mother who is a Visakhian. Grade Five scholarship opens the door to the bright students from less privileged backgrounds to enter good schools, and majority of them, who were admitted as such, excel in studies and proceed to university.  

The other objective was to provide the scholarship grants to deserving students.   

Scholarship exam is competitive and therefore exert a significant pressure on young students. However, those of us who are born without a silver spoon in the mouth, know from experience that in a world of inequality, some would have to work extra hard to achieve certain things that are taken granted by their privileged peers.   

Inequality is universal, so are personal efforts to navigate the unequal status quos. Parenting of Indian or East Asian families in the West is both envied and ridiculed. However, without that, most these kids would be destined to work in corner shops. Instead, that extra effort had landed these communities in top tier SMTE courses in disproportionate numbers to the extent that without ethnic quotas, they would occupy the whole class.  

Nothing wrong in a student in a lesser privileged background working extra-hard to make a better future. What is disingenuous is robbing these kids their only chance to a better learning environment.   

Grade 5 scholarship opens door to bright students from less privileged backgrounds to enter good schools

That is what the naysayers of the scholarship exam would achieve, irrespective of the divergence of their objectives. They come in different types: Some are well intended day dreaming idealists, like the founders of swabasha education policy, who at the end screwed up several generations of children in this country. Likewise, their modern day heirs are bound to fail. Then there are clowns, who just parrot whatever the earlier category says and try to win attention. Then there is a rather sinister group of people who have never valued the contribution or the intellectual skills of these children of lesser privileged folks. Those are the type who still savours the days when S. Thomas’ and Royal dominated a winless Sri Lanka cricket team. 
By introducing the swabasha education and robbing the average kids of their access to English education, CWW Kannangara and et al, rather than helping the under-privileged, helped these folks maintaining the unequal status quo. Now, abolish the Grade five scholarship exam and trap these kids in their village schools.  

There are some lofty aims behind this proposal too. One is to make the nearest school the best school. In that sense, it is argued the competition to popular schools will end. That is a salutary aim, but, existential realities and social cultural perceptions would make it, at best, is achieved only in half.  

The distinction between popular schools and others is not just the buildings or teachers. There is a whole social and cultural dynamic behind it. There is a well -established old boy network, long standing traditions, and the opportunity for networking in these schools, all of which come handy in the job search.  

Inequalities exit everywhere. Britain’s OX-Bridge universities admit 50% of its intake from fee levying schools which account for less then 5% of school population. Politicians in Sri Lanka who want the common folks to send their kids to the nearest school would not remove their children from S.Thomas’ and Trinity and admit them to the nearest school.  

However, popular schools and national schools cannot provide the solution to unequal distribution of education resources. In that sense, the government’s plan to develop 2000 schools is commendable. However, buildings alone – or swimming pools – don’t make good schools. What matters most is human capital. Popular schools remain popular in part because they manage to attract the best from a depleting pool of quality teachers. The government should invest in teacher training and emphasize on teaching mathematics, science, English and information technology.   

In the long run, this program should address the inequality of education resources.   

However, the government should not mix up the two policies and put the cart before the horse. It should not deprive the bright students of the opportunity to go to popular schools through the scholarship exam.  

Instead, it should explore how it can better achieve the stated objectives of the Grade five scholarship exam. Percentage of students admitted to national schools through the Grade five scholarship exam is only 20% of the cohort of these schools, and in schools where there are primary classes, the figure is 12%, according to a study by Ashani Abayasekara of the Institute of Policy Studies. Students who got admitted to popular provincial schools through the scholarship exam are less than 5%.

The average bursary for an eligible student is a paltry Rs.500 and in order to qualify for that parents should earn less Rs. 50,000 annually. These numbers do not reflect the economic realities on the ground, let alone extending a helping hand to poor kids.  

The government should improve on these numbers. Ministry of Education can instruct the resource -rich popular schools to open at least one more new class for the grade five scholarship holders, and provide financial support. It should increase the amount of scholarship grant to scholarship (for which it can redirect funds from Samurdhi which feeds too many freeloaders).  
 Rather than discouraging children from sitting the exam, the government should encourage them. If the exam is a ‘memory test’ as Mr. Kariyawasam says, (however Mathematics cannot be crammed) it should revamp the exam to better gauge the intellectual skills of the students. The best performing of the lot should be given coaching from the younger stage, and financial assistance to achieve their full potential in the future.  

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