Educational reforms Sri Lanka demands today for a brighter tomorrow
Source:Island
The 32nd Dr. C. W. W. Kannangara Memorial Lecture titled ‘For a country with a future’: Educational reforms Sri Lanka demands today’ delivered by Prof. Athula Sumathipala, Director, Institute for Research and Development, Sri Lanka and Chairman, National Institute of Fundemental Studies, Hanthana on Oct 13 at the National Institute of Education, Maharagama
Continued From Friday (21)
We believe the child who is ready to face the challenges of the 21st century is a child who meets all these requirements.”
They have identified six aims of general education as shown below. National aims of general education
1. An active contributor to national development
2. An effective and efficient employee or smart self-employee
3. An entrepreneur or person with an entrepreneurial mindset
4. A patriotic citizen
5. A good human
6. A member of a happy family
These six aims are divided into nine parts as follows.
1. Positive
2. Practical
3. Proactive
4. Pragmatic
5. Patriotic
6. Passionate
7. Peace loving
8. Preserving
9. Problem solver
The new educational reforms have identified the skills necessary to the child of the 21st century, as follows.
The twelve 21st century skills
Learning skills
1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Creativity
3. Collaborations and teamwork
4. Communication knowledge
Literacy skills
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
Life skills
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10. Initiative
11. Productivity
12. Social skills
We then discuss social skills under six different criteria.
1. Understanding oneself
2. Managing oneself
3. Understanding others
4. Building and managing positive relationships with others
5. Relationship with the environment
6. Responsible decision making
Main domains of national reforms:
It is evident that these reforms have been proposed after in-depth analysis and that they are conceptually excellent plans. They are also well in line with the vision of Dr. Kannangara. The challenge, however, is how to effect these reforms in this country, given the social, economic and political challenges we are facing.
On the one hand, it is becoming impossible to hold school on all five days due to the fuel crisis. On the other hand, the question is how technical difficulties and shortcomings of on-line teaching can impact these reforms. Furthermore, it is very likely that these reforms will be viewed within a political framework by both union leaders and student unions.
The level of understanding of the key stakeholders of these reforms when they are being introduced will obviously be at different levels. Communicating these reforms to the different stakeholders at a level that they can clearly understand it will be a significant challenge. There appears to be a significant shortfall in employing social and electronic media, as well as influencers, to effectively communicate about these reforms, and we have a social responsibility to warn about this shortfall.
It is human nature to resist change. It is critically important to clearly communicate to the public, why the current education system needs to change, how it should change, how the direction of change and its final objectives are decided, in such a way that it addresses their fears and concerns. No one should be offended if I remind you that failure to carry out effective communication could lead to the same end as that of the proposal to shift to organic fertilisers.
Furthermore, however great the reforms are, it is necessary to remember that opposition against highly sensitive matters such as the Grade 5 scholarship examination, may come from those whose livelihood depends on tuition classes. It is also necessary to keep in mind that even the elements of society who are demanding a ‘system change’ may well behave in a different way when it is something that will affect them personally. As psychology tells us, this is because that the way we think when it is our personal problem is different to how we think when it is someone else’s problem. Another important challenge is how teachers’ mentalities can be aligned with these reforms. This does not mean that we assume opposition from the majority of teachers. However, it is doubtful if we have sufficient research data to determine the reality of this issue.
I would like to reiterate that the authorities, intellectuals and politicians already possess the mechanisms and strategies to win this massive challenge of effectively communicating these changes to all relevant layers of society and to convert them to honoured stakeholders of this change. Such strategic communication needs to be positioned as one of the most important aspects of the implementation of these reforms.
Other segments within the big picture that merit attention apart from the reforms within the school system in years 1-13
i. Early childhood development and the first 1,000 days
ii. The role of pre-schools as part of the education system
iii. Inclusive education and children with special needs
iv. Contribution of distance learning to educational reforms and challenges
v. Relationship between education and health
vi. Private universities and educational institutions
vii. Students at universities abroad
viii. Life-long education, adult education, continuous education for education professionals
ix. Integrating research within the overall scheme of education
Since there isn’t sufficient time to discuss all these sections fully, I will discuss some of the sections I believe are the most important.
(i) Early childhood development and the first 1,000 days
The greatest importance and greatest weight when investing in a child should be attached to the first 1,000 days. This is because 80% of a child’s brain development is completed within the first three years. Therefore, significant investment in educational reforms should be allocated to early childhood development, i.e., the Golden 1,000 days. A strong foundation laid at this stage will help the child successfully complete his / her education. From a health perspective, the Health Department, particularly the Family Health Bureau, makes a meaningful contribution towards this objective, however, there is a lack of an active mechanism to enrol parents as honoured stakeholders within this process. This is important because responsive care giving, i.e., observing a child’s signals in a timely and accurate manner, understanding such signals and responding to them, is an important part of childhood development.
Early childhood protection cannot be achieved through pre-established rules and guidance. Parents need to understand the related scientific concepts and should incorporate these concepts into their day-to-day life. The relationship with children varies according to the parents, therefore parents need to analyse the existing interactions with their children and secondly, adapt these measures and develop them to suit their needs. However, there is no structured mechanism for parents to develop this skill set within the education system, nor within the health system.
I do no intend to discuss this in detail, but wish to point out the critical importance of this concept; to reiterate that the greatest investment is necessary in the first 1,000 days, far more than in the Grade 5 scholarship exam, the Ordinary Level or Advanced Level examinations. Stimulating brain development is an investment with high returns; the best investment for the Sri Lankan nation. Research data indicates that for every Rs.200 invested on brain development, the return can be valued at Rs.1 800
(ii) The role of pre-schools as part of the education system
I shall quote from the article Mala. N. De Silva, retired Deputy Head, National Education Faculty, published in the 39th edition of Gaveshana, that explained our stance on the role of pre-schools in educational reforms. A pre-school has been recognised as the ‘Golden door that gives a person access to society’. De Silva writes quoting Koswatte Ariyawimala Thero that “The role of a preschool is not to give a child a large number of modern toys. Neither is it to teach a child to recite a poem in English. Those are secondary. A pre-school is not a tutory. It is the place where small children play; where they form social relations. That is what human education is.”
Furthermore, the UNESCO report on ‘Education for Life’ states that pre-school education is a prior necessity for any educational or cultural system, indicating the importance of pre-schools. At the World Children’s Summit in 1990 in New York, the world’s leaders signed the ‘World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children’, which had as its primary claim that early childhood should be a time of ‘joy and peace, of playing, learning and growing’.
The educational reforms of 1997 too had significant focus on early childhood education: it recommends increasing the number of pre-schools so that 3–5-year-olds can receive a better education. The National Census on early childhood education centres estimated that there are 19,668 pre-schools in Sri Lanka. The majority of these are, however, privately owned, and many parents cannot bear the cost of these schools. These pre-schools are frequently un-monitored and not standardised.
Under these conditions, I would like to reiterate that these pre-schools should be monitored and that the process of providing resource persons at these schools an adequate training needs to be expanded significantly.
(iii) Inclusive education and children with special needs
I would like to present a few points here based on the article written by Binoli Herath of the Institute for Research and Development on this topic.
‘All children have an equal right to education; however, it is not a secret that children with special needs face multiple challenges in accessing and receiving education’.
‘These children often are disregarded in society due to disabilities, poverty and the extreme nature of their problems. Most of them are unaware of the opportunities available to them. Similarly, most people are unaware of the abilities such children can possess’.
The Ayati Centre affiliated with the Kelaniya University provides health and education services for children with special needs with the mission to help such children reach their maximum potential through the use of modern scientific interventions and expertise. It also serves as a training centre for resource persons and as a research centre. There is great need to expand such services throughout the country.
I believe it is important to discuss alternative education for children with special needs.
1. Specialised schools: these are pre-schools, primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools for children with relatively severe disabilities. Children with severe visual, auditory, physical or cognitive disabilities receive education in such specialised schools using specifically adapted curricula.
2. Special education units within mainstream schools: children with special needs can be educated in units specifically established for them.
3. Special resource centres attached to mainstream schools: children with special needs enter regular classes and work within them for the majority of the time whilst seeking special services necessary from the resource centres a few times a week. Such schemes provide necessary support to children with speech difficulties, autism, emotional disorders, auditory or visual difficulties, learning difficulties, attention disorders and ADHD, for example.
4. Inclusive mainstream schools: provide education to children with special needs in the mainstream schools. This is feasible for children with mild disorders who can enter mainstream schools.
These facilities are available to some level within the education system; however, educational reforms should include mechanisms to elevate the entire society to one that acts positively towards children with special needs and does not discriminate against them. Education systems for children with special needs usually follow the curricula in the mainstream schools, however, these systems need to be modernised, along with making modern equipment and trained teachers available.
(iv) Distance learning as a tool for educational reforms and challenges faced
We discussed this issue with Neil Gunadasa, Additional Secretary, State Ministry for Educational Reforms, Open Universities and Development of Distance Education. He explained that certain sections of distance education functioned to a limited extent within the general education system. Recently, a separate Distance Education Unit was established to make distance education an integral part of general education.
“With the increased use of modern technology such as computers, tablets, internet and smart phones, the stage had already been set for the expansion of distance learning. The advent of Covid 19 and the resultant issues helped further popularise distance learning.
The Information Technology Division of the Ministry of Education initiated e-Thaksalawa, a structured distance learning system which contained a limited amount of learning media for children. They have developed it further now so that it can be used for educational reforms. This system is similar to a virtual classroom, carrying out the process that usually happens in a classroom on a virtual basis, using technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
All 10,165 schools in Sri Lanka have been added to the system and it is expected to facilitate any student pre-booking and accessing the lectures of any teacher. The e-Thaksalawa content is prepared to match the new educational reforms which offer lessons in a module system. For example, a student completing a ten-hour module receives one credit. Learning the module content may well be done at school, but e-Thaksalawa offers the student the possibility of expanding his knowledge of the subject matter further using extension material.
Content creation has been done in all three languages, using both teachers and external subject matter experts. For example, for a topic such as agriculture, experts on agriculture are invited to contribute to content creation. Steps are being taken to provide students knowledge of more subject-related matter using the internet and distance learning methods. The 107 computer centres covering every educational division in the country are to be developed further to use as local resource centres for the new reforms.
