Features

75 Years (3): Tom Nairn, AJ Wilson and the Break-up of States

Published

4 years ago

2023/02/26

Rajan Philips

Tom Nairn, widely known for his 1977 book, The Break-up of Britain, considered by many as “the most significant book on British politics of the past half-century,” passed away on January 21, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was 90 years old and had become a “guru figure” for Scottish Nationalists over the last few decades. Tributes have poured in from across Scotland’s political spectrum, both nationalists and unionists, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who would have been seven years old when Break-up first appeared, her predecessor Alex Salmond, as well as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Scotsman from Glasgow. To writer David Greig, Nairn was “Scotland’s intellectual engine of civic contemporary nationalism.” Others have called Nairn, Scotland’s greatest modern philosopher.

The break-up book was not primarily an exposition or celebration of Scottish nationalism, but a breakdown of the crisis of the British State. In his 1977 introduction, Nairn acknowledges that “although no main part of the book was written in Scotland, that country’s problems were never far from the inspiration of all of them.” The introduction includes a list of Scottish intellectuals who helped him with comments and suggestions for the book, and the list includes Gordon Brown. Brown would have been 26 then, still six years before becoming a Member of Parliament, and was working on his PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh, titled The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–1929. The two had collaborated earlier, in 1975, in publishing the “The Red Paper on Scotland”, which Brown edited and to which Nairn was the lead contributor.

Gordon Brown stayed with the Labour Party in Scotland and in Britain, to become Britain’s longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister. Nairn broke away first facilitating the formation of the Scottish Labour Party and then blessing its incorporation within the Scottish Nationalist Party. Brown’s passionate campaign against independence during the 2014 referendum was a factor in 55% of the people of Scotland voting against independence, a verdict that left Nairn hugely disappointed.

Brown was generous in his adulation of Tom Nairn after his death, describing him as “a great writer, thinker, intellectual and good man,” and acknowledging that Nairn “disagreed with me on many things but his books and scholarship will long be remembered.” Anthony Barnett, a former co-editor of the New Left Review, has called Tom Nairn and Gordon Brown “two towering political intellectuals,” who for nearly half a century “have wrestled over and shaped the Left’s view of the United Kingdom.” One of them (Brown) “directly shaped the Kingdom itself,” while the other (Nairn) played a direct “role in the emergence of modern Scotland.” Their “joint story” remains to be told.

Their story would be similar to the often-told Canadian story of Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque, two French Canadians and their intellectual and political fight over the status of Quebec in Canada. Here again, Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada was able to thwart the attempt of Levesque, as the Premier of Quebec, to achieve quasi-separation for his Province through a constitutional arrangement called “sovereignty association.” As a political intellectual, Trudeau was quite dismissive of the statist aspirations of nationalism and characteristically said: “It is not the concept of nation that is retrograde, but its claim to sovereignty.”

Wilson’s Break-up

Eleven years after the publication of The Break-up of Britain, AJ Wilson published the first of his trilogy on the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka and titled it, The Break-up of Sri Lanka, perhaps emulating Nairn’s break-up title in Britain. Professor Wilson was not an advocate of political causes but a respected academic and Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent political scientist. The fact that Wilson was the son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayakam, Q.C., the father-figure leader of non-violent Tamil politics, did not diminish his reputation as an objective and detached academic. The affinal relationship certainly gave Wilson an intimate view of decision making in Tamil politics even as it gave him uniquely congenial access to Sri Lanka’s political leaders across the island’s many divides. Wilson was known for his affinity toward and admiration for Leftist leaders, NM Perera and Bernard Soysa; and his writings showed intellectual empathy for Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and his well-intended, but failed, efforts to reconcile Sinhala-Tamil differences.

A product first of the University of Ceylon and then the London School of Economics, where he obtained his PhD and DSc, Professor Wilson had contributed immensely to the cause of political education in Sri Lanka directly as a teacher of several hundreds of political science students at Peradeniya, and indirectly through his popular and comprehensive textbook, Introduction to Civics and Government, that reached several thousands of students, in all three languages, in Sri Lanka’s schools until the book was banned by ultranationalist ignoramuses at the Department of Education in the early 1960s. Nonetheless, the book was more than a textbook and remained a constant companion for Sri Lanka’s political intellectuals like Rev. Paul Caspersz and Upali Cooray.

Wilson left Peradeniya in 1973 to accept the position as Chair of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. Wilson’s break-up book directly arose out of his experience as a constitutional advisor to President Jayewardene between 1978 and 1983, and as a mediator between the President and the TULF leaders. The book is a historical narrative written by an academic from the standpoint of a political participant-observer. It is worth noting that the median over Sri Lanka’s national problem became totally out-sourced, post-Wilson and post-1983.

Now, several decades after the publications of the two break-up books and notwithstanding their premonitory titles, there has been no break-up either in Britain or in Sri Lanka. That is one superficial way of looking at it. A different view would be that over the last three decades there have been significant changes to the ruling structures of the two countries and they have contributed to the two states remaining unbroken. The truth is also that neither book carried a prognostic message or warning, but rather a critique and an analysis of the crisis in which each state was, and continues to be, embedded.

Tom Nairn went on to live for 45 years after the first break-up edition, revisited, modified or reinforced his arguments against a backdrop of rapid world changes, and wrote and published prolifically. Among the more significant books that followed the break-up are: The Enchanted Glass (1988), a substantive critique of and a polemical satire on the British monarchy; Faces of Nationalism (1997), in which Nairn widens his gaze beyond the British isles to make sense of the explosions of nationalism accompanying the implosions of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; and After Britain: and New Labour and the Return of Scotland (2000), a masterpiece on Blair’s “pseudo-conservative” Labourists as logical successors to Thatcher’s “pseudo-radical” Tories. In 2008, he targeted Gordon Brown, when he was Prime Minister, with an essay, Gordon Brown: The Bard of Britishness, which was published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, as a symposium including responses to Nairn by others. As well, a new Verso edition of the Break-up was published in January 2022, 45 years after its first appearance.

Professor Wilson passed way in 2000, twelve years after the publication of The Break of Sri Lanka in 1988. He was in poor health but managed to publish two more books, to complete the trilogy and add to his impressive collection of nearly a dozen books on Sri Lankan politics. The second of the trilogy, published in 1994, was a political biography: SJV Chelvanayakam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism, 1947-1977. His last word was published in 2000: Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries. In between, he wrote articles to the Lanka Guardian and the Tamil Times, expressing his opinion on political events, including the one that he wrote with some optimism for positive changes when Chandrika Kumaratunga became Sri Lanka’s President in 1994.

Tom Nairn and Nationalism

Tom Nairn was born in Freuchie, Fife County, Scotland, not far from St. Andrew’s. After high school, he went first to Edinburgh College of Art but changed course for a degree in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a stint at Oxford. Already steeped in Scottish history and culture, along with those of the Kingdom and the Empire, Nairn went to Italy on a British Council scholarship, where he learnt Italian and took to Gramsci. He would later recall that “If you were a Marxist [in Britain] you were a Stalinist or a Trotskyist, … but I was insulated against that by my Italian experience.” He was a compulsive writer, an academic and an activist. His academic activism, while a lecturer in 1968 at Hornsey College of Art, north London, in support of a sit-in protest, led to an administrative dismissal and quiet disbarment from teaching in British institutions. As a peripatetic academic, he roamed from Europe to Australia, before returning home to teach and write.

Nairn was a natural fit to the group of leftist intellectuals and activists who took over the publication of journal New Left Review (NLR), in London, in the 1970s. The journal had been in publication from 1960, launched by a group of British Marxists who, on the one hand, rejected the politics of the Labour Party and the legacy of Stalinism in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and, on the other, identified themselves wholeheartedly with the then vigorous Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The NLR became a conduit in English for the continental schools of Marxism and a respected forum for disseminating and debating the writings of interwar and postwar Marxists and progressive intellectuals like Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs, Karl and Hedda Korsch, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, EP Thompson, Louis Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas, and Charles Taylor.

The 1970s NLR group included, besides Tom Nairn, Perry Anderson, Robin Blackburn, Anthony Barnett, Fred Halliday, Nicolas Krasso, and Tariq Ali among others. Sri Lanka’s Upali Cooray, Marxist and Labour Lawyer, was active in the NLR circle. By the 1970s, NLR began taking positions in British politics and Anderson and Nairn formulated the famous Anderson-Nairn thesis on the decline and fall of Britain. The NLR supported Britain joining the European Community, setting itself apart from many in the Labour Party and much of the British Left at that time. Tom Nairn wrote and published a special issue of the journal in 1972, titled, “The Left against Europe?”

The Break-up of Britain, Nairn’s magnum opus, is a collection of articles that he wrote to the New Left Review (NLR) between 1970 and 1977. The articles were written at different times – 1970, 1974, 1975 and 1976, during a decade of alternating governments and severe political and economic crises. The book was published two years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. A postscript was added to the 1981 edition by which time Margaret Thatcher was into her third year as Prime Minister.

The book’s chapter headings are indicative of Nairn’s diagnoses of the crisis of Britain’s multi-national state. The first chapter, perhaps written last in 1976, was aptly titled “The Twilight of the British State.” There were two chapters on Scotland (Scotland and Europe, and Old and New Scottish Nationalism); two on England (English Nationalism: the case of Enoch Powell, and the English Enigma); one each on Wales (Culture and Politics in Wales) and Northern Ireland (Relic or Portent?); a penultimate chapter titled, Supra-Nationalism and Europe; and the final chapter: The Modern Janus, a powerful reflection on Marxism and nationalism that begins challengingly, “The theory of nationalism represents Marxism’s great historical failure.”

For students of nationalism, the Break-up’s publication presaged a surge of writings in English on the theory and manifestations of nationalism. Two pathbreaking books appeared in 1983. Benedict Anderson’s (older brother of Perry Anderson) Imagined Communities, brought into relief two principal processes of nation making. ‘Print capitalism’ that led to mass production of newspapers and languages in the hitherto vernaculars of the world, and ‘pilgrimage’ that made modern nomads out of state functionaries, and the two together enabled and facilitated the contemporaneous collective imagination of hitherto disparate groups of people. Anderson’s “preciously written” book somewhat overshadowed Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism that was also published in 1983.

Gellner’s assertive thesis is that the emergence of nations and nationalisms became feasible only because of industrialization and modernization. Gellner’s student, Anthony Smith, countered Gellner and asserted the ethnic-primordiality of nations in his book, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, published in 1986. Tom Nairn’s writings could be seen as synthesizing the two, modernity and pre-modernity, privileging the former without dismissing the latter. Esoterically speaking, modernity and post-modernity have made possible the national survival of many cultural groups which in Engels’s dismissive description should have been reduced to becoming “ethnographic monuments.”

Tom Nairn is considered to be among the four most cited writers on nationalism along with Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and Anthony Smith. Many others have since enriched the universe of writings on nationalism. Two outstanding books on nationalism in the industrial cradle of Western Europe are, Patrick Geary’s (2002) The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe; and Joep Leerssen’s (2006, first published in the Dutch-language) National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History. Books on nationalism in postcolonial societies outside South Asia, include, Robert J. Foster’s (1995) edited symposium, Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melanesia; Neil Lazarus’s (1999) Nationalism and Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World; and Anthony Reid’s (2010) Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in Southeast Asia.

A common feature of late-twentieth century writings on nationalism is the emphasis on culture and the reliance on cultural anthropology. Intervening at the political-intellectual level was Eric Hobsbawm, a contemporary of Ceylon’s Pieter Keuneman and India’s Mohan Kumaramangalam at Cambridge, Marxist and prolific historian, and an intellectual of the British Communist Party who fought Stalinism from within the Party. In his 1991 book, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, and other writings, Hobsbawm countered the statist (and break-up) assertions of nationalism by powerfully pointing out the hopeless stalemates that contending national polities might generate if every national group, including majority groups, were to insist on a state of its own and reject any and all compromising alternatives. Hobsbawm’s warning comes alive in the two break-up narratives of Britain and Sri Lanka. A dubiously redeeming feature in Britain has been what Nain called the ‘English Enigma,’ a peculiar, imperially sustained, and culturally snobbish abstinence from nationalism by the English people. The tragically opposite indulgence in nationalisms has been the story of post-independence Sri Lanka. More on that – Next Week.

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Features

Sections of US media looking power straight in the eye

Published

20 hours ago

2026/10/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Trump addressing the media at the White House.(BBC)

Some fundamental freedoms seen to be at the heart of democracy in the US – religion, speech, the press, assembly and the right to petition the government – are at risk of being undermined at present by the country’s Executive President. However, the latter is being legally challenged on this score by some sections of the US media and the citizenry of the country could take heart from this notable defense of media freedom.

In fact this is good news for the world of democracy. The push back is coming from organizations such as CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC who constitute the nucleus as it were of the US media and their solidarity no less than their resourcefulness calls for commendation.

Following a recent White House decision to suspend CNN from what was referred to as ‘participation in presidential pool coverages’, the other media organizations mentioned refused to replace it in the pool. Their position was that the public had a right to receive ‘accurate and independent information about the government.’

Earlier, the White House decided to bar MS NOW and Politico from entering its premises following the restrictions imposed on CNN. The organizations were accused of publishing “FAKE NEWS’ , ‘Fiction’ and ‘lies’ in respect of the administration. These organizations lost no time in initiating a federal lawsuit accusing the central administration of violating their rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

However, the latter litigating organizations could now consider themselves as having been vindicated because the federal court hearing their case has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore White House press access to journalists from the mentioned media institutions. Notably, the court has declared that the ban is ‘likely unconstitutional’. The case is proceeding.

The mass media of the most vibrant democracies of the West ought to be no strangers to such inspirational acts of solidarity and exemplifications of independence but there are lessons here for the democracies of the South that could stand them in good stead. Minus the right of a people to be informed, the rest of fundamental rights featuring in Southern Bills of Rights and legislation of the kind are bereft of substance and meaning.

It is informed decision-making on the part of a citizenry that makes for democratic vibrancy and on this score many a Southern democracy fails. While Southern publics generally demand of their governments continuous economic well being and substantive material benefits they are not equally desirous of being informed and knowledgeable.

This lacuna in the consciousness of many Southern publics enables their governments ‘to get off the hook’, so to speak and govern, or more often misgovern, their countries with impunity. Among other factors, this species of mass ignorance makes it possible for governments to dismantle democracy and rule in perpetuity.

Accordingly, an educated and constantly informed public is an essential precondition for the flourishing of democracy and independent media are integral to this process. Minus an independent mass media sector that meets the knowledge needs of the people responsibly, democracy is as good as dead.

Needless to say, those sections of the US media that are currently taking the Trump administration to task over its media curbs are acutely aware of the cruciality of these fundamental knowledge requirements.

The hope of democratic opinion worldwide and locally is likely to be that media independence would thrive in the manner in which it is flourishing in the most vibrant and accountable democracies of the West.

Southern countries such as Sri Lanka that lay claim to democratic credentials, but are democracy-deficient in many ways, need to be particularly cognizant of these requirements. The publics of these countries need to go the extra mile to ensure the thriving of an independent but responsible mass media sector.

In fact it is veritably a matter of life and death. It is only an independent media sector that could, while ensuring the existence of an informed public, impress on the latter the need to protect and perpetuate its fundamental rights. In the absence of these campaigns, such publics could be eventually having on their hands governments that boast of ruling in perpetuity.

Taking a leaf from the sections of the US media referred to independent media organizations in Southern states need to act in solidarity as well. They would need to act on the basis of the principle that acts of victimization suffered by members in their fold at the hands of governments, for instance, are in fact inimical acts directed at their collectivity and which call for united remedial action. In short, no independent mass media institution could see itself as ‘an island’.

Besides some general guidance on the importance of media independence and solidarity, the message coming from the US with regard to media praxis is that power must be stood-up to unblinkingly. The mentioned sections of the US media are primarily in a struggle to ward off encroachments on their independence in the areas of policy and practice by the political executive, that is the President.

The latter would ride rough-shod over the media in the absence of robust opposition by the media itself to inimical executive action of this kind.

While media independence needs to be seen as crucial to democratic development, an obligation is cast on the media to ensure that it uses such independence responsibly and constructively.

The worst that could afflict a media sector is for it to fall prey to the clichetic ‘freedom of the wild ass’. In fact recurring irresponsibility on the part of the media could lend credence to the perception that a tightly regulated media is best for a country. It is a short step from this misguided view to the position that political authoritarianism is best for a state. That turn of events would be of course catastrophic for a democracy.

The issues discussed thus far point to the need for a broad discourse among Southern democracies in particular on what is best for them in this connection. Given the risks underscored earlier for Southern countries in particular a broad discussion on the matters at hand, which includes the public, emerges as a must for Sri Lanka. Besides, media solidarity within democratic countries and internationally is a must.

Features

What lessons can be learned to improve quality of Sri Lanka’s Grade 6 syllabus

Published

20 hours ago

2026/10/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya

by Prof. M. W. Amarasiri de Silva

Following public controversy over an inappropriate web link found in an English study module, the Sri Lankan government formally deferred the full rollout of the Grade 6 curriculum reforms to January 2027. In the interim, state schools will maintain the existing syllabus, reverting to standard eight-period daily timetables and previous textbooks to ensure uninterrupted instruction. Prime Minister and Minister of Education Dr. Harini Amarasuriya emphasized that this temporary pause allows the Education Ministry to thoroughly review all instructional materials, fix editorial flaws, and conduct scientific impact assessments across pilot schools prior to nation-wide implementation.

To address the oversight, an expert committee evaluated the flawed materials, completed necessary amendments, and finalised discussions to resubmit corrected modules for printing. Beyond revising written texts, the Ministry established a broader preparation roadmap—allocating funds for extensive teacher training programs set to begin mid-year, alongside scheduled informational briefings for parents, teachers, and students. Prime Minister Amarasuriya reaffirmed that none of the valid first-term modules were completely discarded or scrapped, preserving state resources while systematically rebuilding public trust and strengthening quality assurance protocols.

In this respect, this article reviews the current grade 6 syllabus comparing it with similar syllabi of India and the USA, with a view to make recommendations for the upcoming grade 6 syllabus revision.

Architecture of nation’s future

Education is the quiet architecture of a nation’s future. It is the unseen scaffolding upon which generations build their character, their intellect, and their capacity to contribute meaningfully to society. In Sri Lanka, the Grade 6 syllabus occupies a particularly important place in this architecture. It is the bridge between primary learning and the more demanding intellectual terrain of secondary education. It is the moment when children begin to move from learning basic facts to understanding concepts, from memorising information to applying knowledge, and from passive reception to active engagement. Yet, despite its importance, the Grade 6 curriculum in Sri Lanka has long struggled with issues of breadth, depth, relevance, and pedagogy. As global education systems evolve, Sri Lanka must examine what lessons can be learned from international models—particularly India and the United States—to strengthen its own curriculum and prepare students for a rapidly changing world.

The first lesson Sri Lanka can learn is the value of conceptual clarity. India’s NCERT curriculum, especially in Mathematics and Science, is globally respected for its logical progression and conceptual depth. Indian students are introduced early to the idea that mathematics is not merely a set of procedures but a language of reasoning. They learn why a ratio works, not just how to compute one. They understand the structure of an equation, not merely the steps to solve it. In Science, they explore the properties of materials, the structure of plants, and the principles of motion with a clarity that encourages curiosity rather than rote memorisation.

Sri Lanka’s Grade 6 syllabus, while competency-based, often leans heavily toward content coverage. Students are expected to learn many topics, but the time allocated for each is limited, and the teaching culture often emphasizes memorisation over understanding. If Sri Lanka wishes to improve the quality of its syllabus, it must embrace the idea that fewer topics taught well are better than many topics taught superficially. Conceptual mastery builds confidence, and confidence builds lifelong learners.

Lesson from the US

A second lesson comes from the United States, where the curriculum is built around skills rather than content. American students in Grade 6 are expected to read complex texts, analyse arguments, write essays supported by evidence, conduct experiments, and engage in collaborative projects. The emphasis is not on how much they know but on what they can do with what they know. This skills-based approach encourages critical thinking, creativity, and independence—qualities essential for success in the modern world.

Sri Lanka’s syllabus, by contrast, often rewards students for reproducing information rather than interpreting it. The exam culture reinforces this tendency, as students are assessed primarily through written tests that measure recall. To improve the syllabus, Sri Lanka must integrate more opportunities for students to think, question, debate, and create. The classroom should become a space where students learn to solve problems, not just memorize solutions.

Another important lesson comes from the breadth of Sri Lanka’s own curriculum. One of the strengths of the Sri Lankan system is its inclusion of cultural and religious education. Subjects such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity provide moral grounding and cultural identity. Art, Music, Drama, and Health contribute to holistic development. These subjects remind students that education is not merely about academic achievement but about becoming a balanced human being. However, breadth without depth can become burdensome. Grade 6 students in Sri Lanka often juggle more than ten subjects, each with its own textbook, competencies, and assessments. This creates pressure not only for students but also for teachers, who must rush through content to meet syllabus requirements. The lesson here is not to reduce cultural subjects but to integrate them more meaningfully. Religious education can be taught through ethical discussions, community projects, and reflective writing. Art and Music can be connected to history, literature, and social studies. Health can be linked to science and physical education. Integration reduces overload while enriching learning.

Another lesson from India

India offers another valuable lesson in the form of standardised textbooks. NCERT books are used across the country, ensuring consistency in quality and content. They are written by subject experts, reviewed rigorously, and updated periodically. Sri Lanka’s textbooks, while generally well-structured, vary in quality and often lag behind modern pedagogical standards. Some are dense, text-heavy, and lacking in visual aids or real-world examples. To improve the syllabus, Sri Lanka must invest in high-quality textbooks that are engaging, accessible, and aligned with contemporary educational research. Textbooks should not merely transmit information; they should inspire curiosity. They should include stories, diagrams, experiments, and activities that make learning enjoyable and meaningful.

The United States provides a lesson in inquiry-based science education. American students conduct experiments, build models, observe natural phenomena, and engage in engineering design challenges. They learn science not as a set of facts but as a process of discovery. Sri Lanka’s science curriculum includes experiments, but many schools lack the resources, laboratory facilities, or teacher training to implement them effectively. Improving the syllabus requires improving the ecosystem around it. Schools need laboratories, equipment, and teacher development programs that empower educators to teach science through inquiry. A syllabus is only as strong as the environment in which it is taught. ***

International models

Another area where Sri Lanka can learn from international models is language education. In India, students often learn three languages—English, Hindi, and Sanskrit or Urdu. This heavy language load has its challenges, but it also produces students with strong linguistic skills. In the United States, English Language Arts emphasises reading complex texts, writing arguments, and analysing literature. Sri Lanka’s English curriculum, while improving, still struggles with uneven implementation across schools. Many students reach secondary school without adequate proficiency in English, limiting their access to global knowledge. To improve the syllabus, Sri Lanka must strengthen English instruction through better teacher training, more reading opportunities, and a shift from grammar-heavy teaching to communication-focused learning. At the same time, Sinhala and Tamil instruction should be modernised to include creative writing, literature appreciation, and critical reading.

Social Studies is another area ripe for improvement. Sri Lanka’s curriculum includes History, Geography, and Civics, but the teaching often emphasises memorization of dates, definitions, and facts. India’s Social Science curriculum, while also content-heavy, provides clearer conceptual frameworks. The United States, however, excels in teaching civics and citizenship. American students learn how governments function, how laws are made, how communities solve problems, and how citizens participate in democracy. Sri Lanka can strengthen its Civics curriculum by incorporating more discussions on governance, rights, responsibilities, and community engagement. Students should learn not only the structure of government but also the values that sustain it—justice, equality, and participation.

One of the most important lessons Sri Lanka can learn is the value of reducing exam pressure. In both India and Sri Lanka, exams dominate the educational landscape. Students are judged primarily by their ability to perform on written tests. The United States, while not free from assessment challenges, uses a wider range of evaluation methods—projects, presentations, portfolios, and continuous assessment. These methods allow students to demonstrate learning in diverse ways. Sri Lanka should consider adopting a more balanced assessment system that values creativity, collaboration, and practical skills alongside academic knowledge.

Technology integration is another area where Sri Lanka can improve. The United States incorporates digital literacy, coding, online research, and digital citizenship into the curriculum. Sri Lanka’s ICT syllabus is well-structured, but implementation varies widely. Many schools lack computers, internet access, or trained ICT teachers. Improving the syllabus requires improving infrastructure. Students must learn to navigate the digital world safely and effectively. They must learn coding not as a luxury but as a basic skill. They must learn to evaluate online information critically, a skill essential in an era of misinformation.

Teacher training

Teacher training is perhaps the most critical lesson of all. A syllabus is only as effective as the teachers who deliver it. India invests heavily in teacher training through national programs, workshops, and online platforms. The United States emphasises professional development, peer collaboration, and instructional coaching. Sri Lanka must strengthen its teacher training programmes, ensuring that educators understand not only what to teach but how to teach it. Teachers should be trained in inquiry-based learning, differentiated instruction, formative assessment, and classroom management. They should be empowered to adapt the syllabus to the needs of their students rather than follow it mechanically.

Sri Lanka must learn the lesson of relevance. A syllabus must prepare students not only for exams but for life. It must teach them how to think, how to communicate, how to solve problems, and how to work with others. It must prepare them for a world where knowledge is abundant, but wisdom is scarce. It must help them navigate a future shaped by technology, globalisation, environmental challenges, and social change. To improve the syllabus, Sri Lanka must ask: What kind of citizens do we want to produce? What kind of thinkers? What kind of leaders? The answers to these questions should shape the curriculum.

Lastly, improving the quality of Sri Lanka’s Grade 6 syllabus requires learning from both international models and local strengths. From India, Sri Lanka can learn the value of conceptual clarity and standardised textbooks. From the United States, it can learn the importance of skills, inquiry, and creativity. From its own traditions, it can preserve cultural education, moral development, and holistic learning. The goal is not to copy another country’s system but to build a uniquely Sri Lankan curriculum that is modern, relevant, and empowering. A curriculum that honours the past while preparing students for the future. A curriculum that nurtures thinkers, creators, and compassionate citizens. A curriculum worthy of a nation with immense potential and a proud educational heritage. If Sri Lanka embraces these lessons, the Grade 6 syllabus can become not just a bridge to secondary education but a foundation for national progress.

Features

Three magical nights at Colombo Fashion Week

Published

20 hours ago

2026/10/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

Melloney Dassanayaka is certainly a familiar name here, and abroad, as well, having represented Sri Lanka at the Miss Universe 2024 pageant, held in Mexico.

A former National Basketball player, she is also involved in several projects, beneficial to the community, including financial literacy for single women-headed families in the country.

A banker by profession, Melloney hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration.

Melloney with Asanka de Mel of Lovi Sri Lanka

This extremely talented old girl of Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya, was in the limelight, once more, when she was seen on the ramp at Colombo Fashion Week.

It was her very first experience, at this prestigious event, and she loved every minute of it, she said, and, what’s more, she was featured on three consecutive days.

According to the itinerary, on day 01 she walked for Lovi Sri Lanka; day 02 Rizwan Beyg (Pakistan designer), Arsath Furkhan (Indian designer), Haoyi Yan (Chinese designer) and Samant Chauhan (Indian designer); and on day 03 Vaishali Shandangule (Indian designer).