Education reforms and the privilege gap

The education reforms which have been presented by the National People’s Power (NPP) Government has eclipsed everything in politics in the country, with Opposition parties demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya who is also the Minister of Education.

However, except for the allegation that the Education Ministry has not discussed the reforms with the stakeholders, other allegations against the ministry and the minister seem to be either trivial or irrelevant or just imaginations which could have largely averted through proper discussions. Playing politics with anything by the Opposition parties has to be expected as the NPP too did so prior to its ascension to power. 

A few months ago, it was alleged that the new reforms trivialised the importance of subjects of history and aesthetic subjects in the curriculum, by making them not compulsory for the students. However, it seems to have been rectified or the allegation has been without a basis. Some people point out spelling mistakes in text books which cannot be ignored as these books are distributed among children who have to learn to write in proper language. Yet, that was not a part of the reforms and this problem has been in practice for a long time.  

The main issue that has become the bone of contention these days is a link to a website that promotes homosexuality which has been included in the English module for the Grade Six students. The Prime Minister and the Education Ministry claim that this is a mistake which has been the handiwork of an unscrupulous official or officials of the National Institute of Education (NIE). 

We see a more important issue has been ignored or overlooked both by the Education Ministry as well as the Opposition groups, especially the teachers’ trade unions. None of the stakeholders of the education sector are concerned about the vast gap in facilities provided to the under-privileged schools especially in rural areas and the privileged schools especially in urban areas. 

As a party that stood for the past 60 years for the ‘proletariat’ of the country, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the prime constituent party of the NPP and the party that dominates the political ideology of the NPP cannot be ignorant of this fact. Majority of the leaders of the JVP are hailing from rural and under-privileged areas of the island. 

We reproduce here a paragraph from an editorial published in the Daily Mirror last year on education. “The central issue in our education system is no doubt the vast gap in sharing of resources between the urban and rural schools. For instance, Water supply in Sri Lankan schools varies, with 76% having access to safe drinking water, often from wells or piped sources, while 16% have no water facilities at all and 8% lack safe access, according to reports. Around 500 schools across the country lack access to safe drinking water for students, according to Sri Lanka Principals’ Association. The gap between related sanitary facilities in schools is wider than this which is said to have prevented tens of thousands of students from schooling.”

Speaking about the negligence of a large majority of schools by the past governments, the NPP member of Parliament Dr. Kaushalya Ariyaratne who was later promoted as the Deputy Minister of Mass Media, stated in Parliament, “We speak about period poverty in this time and era, but unfortunately, many girls’ schools lack proper facilities for sanitary napkin disposal,” emphasising how these basic needs continue to be overlooked.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake while launching the Clean Sri Lanka Project on  January 1 last year stated, “Our Government is focusing on three main projects, or key objectives, to lead this initiative. The first priority is to rescue our country and its people. Economic reforms are being formulated to ensure that economic benefits reach rural communities, as an economy concentrated in the hands of a small group can never bring stability to society. Such an imbalanced economy fosters instability for the nation and its people. Therefore, achieving economic stability requires extending economic benefits to rural populations.”

Therefore, any reform in education should be able to address this privilege gap as well.

‘Your Thought’ is a space, a right of the readers to support or contradict and discuss the issues highlighted in the editorial and other articles in the editorial and op-ed pages. Designed as the reader’s editorial; our readers can send in their writings, with a word count not exceeding 200, to ‘Your Thought’, Daily Mirror Political Features Desk, No 8, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 2 or email to [email protected]