Features

Education system needs skills of conceptualisation

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/4

I remember now what I was told by the headmaster of the Sinhala School at Trincomalee, which I visited on a project to provide furniture soon after the Indo-Lanka Accord had been signed in 1987. I found the school admirably run and congratulated the principal who told me that he had not done much when he was first transferred there. But then he said Brigadier Kobbekaduwa had dropped in and, having seen the mess, asked where his children were. When he said they were in school in Colombo, Denzil Kobbekaduwa had suggested he ran the school as though his own children were in it.

Speech delivered by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha as Guest of Honour at the inauguration ceremony of the MA/PGD in English and Education, 13 February 2022

Let me begin by congratulating the university, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies on launching the second year of this course. I was happy to teach on it last year, since it seemed a praiseworthy service for teachers and, though diffident now after the Coronavirus, I felt I should do what I can this year too.

After all, this is a resurrection of a course I started over 20 years ago, though that had to fade away when the university could not provide residential accommodation for participants. Fortunately, that is not a problem you face, with advanced technology, and these Zoom classes you have so capably arranged.

Innovation is obviously necessary now in this bleak world we find ourselves in, and I am glad Sabaragamuwa is at the forefront of the field. And I am also very glad that you continue with the tradition, established when the university started, of multidisciplinary courses. It was our first Vice-Chancellor, Prof Somasundara, who had the novel idea of Major/Minor courses. Following his initiative, along with Dr. Nirekha Starkloff-Weeratunge, I was able to initiate a programme that, as the last UGC Chairman told me, was better suited to employment opportunities than others.

It was in fact the best of his predecessors, Arjuna Aluwihare, who first thought of core courses when he set up Affiliated University Colleges. And whereas other universities hidebound by tradition sniffed, the University of Sri Jayewardenepura under Prof SB Hettiarachchi took up the challenge and did a great job. That system continued at Sabaragamuwa, which insisted on soft skills long before the term became fashionable.

And both Sabaragamuwa and Jayewardenepura took up my suggestion of introducing pedagogy when it was first mooted, two decades back, when others baulked and thought that beneath them. So too with translation, which we started long ago, whereas the less imaginative delayed. It was only a decade later that the importance of translation studies was understood and encouraged – with your former Dean, Dr. Ariyaratne, now being recognised as the doyen of translation studies in this country.

But while I continue to admire your innovations at Sabaragamuwa, I have to admit to deep despair, deeper than that the Coronavirus has caused, at the failure of our education system at large to adjust to new realities. Unfortunately, skills of conceptualisation are not only lacking as an objective of our system of education, but they are also totally lacking in the administrators who have run it now for decades.

What is the principal problem we now face? It is the difficulty of face to face contact. What is the answer to the problem? Without thinking twice we should respond that it is to develop more opportunities for self-study. What is the key to better self-study? Obviously, it is materials.

You may wonder then why our educationists have failed to develop better materials in the last two years. But you would not wonder if you had registered that the simple question and answer technique I used just now is totally beyond their comprehension. However, I believe there is also another reason for their failure in this regard, which may be a mark of greater intellectual capacity than I generally attribute to them, but indicates greater moral turpitude.

I refer to the rent-seeking that bedevils the production of materials by those responsible for them in the Ministry of Education. Our students have to work with substandard materials, which are no encouragement at all to self-study. Whereas in days gone by students would have incentives to read school textbooks on their own, to follow up on information or a story, that does not occur now because the texts are so uniformly dull. And of course, as a consequence of these appalling texts, students are at the mercy of not just their teachers but, more insidiously, the tuition industry.

Many years ago Tara de Mel, as Secretary of Education, tried what is termed a Multiple Book Option, to persuade established publishers to produce texts for our children. The vested interests stopped that, first by threatening reputed international publishers, in alliance with our booksellers who saw their primacy threatened if they had to face competition; second by cartels set up by senior officials at the NIE who produced what were supposed to be independently produced textbooks. Enough water has now passed under the bridge for me to mention the chief culprit, a man called Siyambalagoda, who was in charge of Social Sciences at the NIE and had set up a group of writers, some of whom did not know the subject about which they were hired to write.

Tara de Mel had the distinction of being disliked by both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapaksa, so she faded away, and after she went, there has been no innovation whatsoever from the Ministry. Tragically, what should have been an opportunity for innovation, when coronavirus struck us two years ago, was lost in a welter of traditional spoonfeeding masquerading as novelty through technology which did not reach too far.

The idea of contained bubbles where limited contact could take place did not occur to anyone. The idea of making better use of the computer laboratories built and equipped at vast expense and kept empty for hours each week, did not occur to anyone. The idea of producing simple texts that students might enjoy reading on their own, with exercises to develop soft skills that they could do with partners within a bubble did not occur to anyone.

As you know, the Advanced Level Examination is now happening, for those who took their Ordinary Level Examination in December 2018. Tara de Mel’s attempt to streamline the school calendar and save at least some of the time our children now waste was halted with a change of government, and it is only now, fifteen years after that damage was done, that those in authority have started to think about that problem, only to be defeated by the Coronavirus on top of their own lethargy.

What is wrong with us? A clue may be found in the fact that I don’t think we have for years had an Education Minister whose children all went to government schools. It is true that some might have gone to Royal College, but as I found this week from someone doing the Advanced Level Examination, there too teaching is minimal. Its cachet lies in the name, and the jobs available to those with the old school tie, regardless of academic qualifications. Of course, the school does have its proponents of academic excellence, but they tend to have succeeded through tuition, not school work. So there is no incentive to improve things for the masses.

He took the lesson to heart. But there are no Kobbekaduwas left now, men of courage and inspiration, on the large scale. We have to be content then with the little bit we can do, and I am glad Sabaragamuwa does what it can, to improve the position of at least a few teachers striving to provide better English, and hence a better future, for our children.

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Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

5 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

5 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.

Handmade with love

Features

Dark Spots …

Published

5 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Yes, dark spots do crop up on the skin, especially with sun exposure and, of course, as the skin ages.

However, these tips should be of immense benefit to those who are faced with dark spots.

* Lemon and Honey Glow Mask:

You will need 01 teaspoon lemon juice and 01 teaspoon honey.

Mix the lemon juice and honey well and then apply this mixture, only on the dark spots.

Leave for 10–15 minutes and then rinse with cool water.

Benefits:

Lemon helps brighten pigmentation.

Honey moisturises and heals skin.

Gives a natural glow.

* Aloe Vera Gel Treatment:

All you need is fresh aloe vera gel.

Apply the gel apply on dark spots, before going to bed.

Leave overnight and wash in the morning.

Benefits:

Reduces acne marks and pigmentation.

Soothes irritated skin.

Helps skin repair naturally.

* Turmeric and Yoghurt Paste:

You will need 01 teaspoon yoghurt and a pinch of turmeric

Mix the yoghurt and turmeric into a smooth paste and apply on affected areas.

Leave for 15 minutes and then wash gently with lukewarm water.

Benefits:

Turmeric brightens skin naturally.

Yoghurt removes dead skin cells.

Helps fade dark spots gradually.

Use these packs 02-03 times a week as results are generally seen over time.

You can also try this out: Mix a ripe papaya into a smooth paste and apply to the face, or directly on to the dark spots. Leave for 15-20 minutes and then wash with lukewarm water.