Features

Education worthy of this moment of crisis

Published

4 years ago

2022/04/26

By Shamala Kumar

I can’t remember the exact words, but remember the sentiment: Nobody is happy with our education, not one person. Education should be about imagining a better world, a country, and a future. Our education does none of that, it’s simply designed to perpetuate the system, blindly and uncritically.

The group, contributing to this column, the Kuppi Collective, was still forming, early into the Covid-19 lockdowns, when Anushka Kahandagama expressed thoughts such as these. In the months to follow, we tried to articulate what kind of education would foster such imaginations, thinking and doing.

The education system, to which we belonged, then and today, is not transformative, not in the way we envisioned. As far as education was concerned, the solution to the lockdown was to merely move from on-site to online, with little acknowledgement of the students who disappeared from our classrooms because of access issues, financial and mental health struggles. We continued, generally, to teach the same content, seemingly blind to the chaos that surrounded us. This suspension from reality, as if universities, our jobs, and education, operate in a vacuum, continues. Only last week, Sudesh Mantillake, another from the Kuppi Collective, stated in frustration, “We work as usual when around us the world disintegrates.”

Therefore, I reflect on this current moment, and how we seem to have lost touch, alienated from students, society, and even ourselves. I wonder what happened!

The university and the present moment

We, as a university community, were slow to situate ourselves in this present crisis. Recently, in my Department, we noted the lack of seminars and discussion, within the university. Somebody responded, “All we seem to do is administration; there’s no time to think”. We have become an institution of automatons and paper-pushers. Where are the topics that spark controversy, fuel debate and disagreement?

The day Sudesh spoke about his frustrations of going on as usual, I met our students as they seemed withdrawn and tired. They were working part-time to support their families, feared for the future and were grappling with the trauma of the past two years. One student said in anguish, “Madam, all of us are depressed”. Students had immediate and practical concerns. Food prices were rising daily and travelling home was expensive. They spent Rs. 600 a day for food, I learnt.

Our Faculty has been supporting students who needed help, but as problems compound and needs expand, we are at a loss. “How do we help them? We have no answers”, said the lead staff member responsible for student welfare. Yet we persist, teaching the same, researching the same, and demonstrating quality the same.

Quality as abstract

Perhaps the greatest transformation, happening at universities these days, is the quality assurance process. Practically all academic staff are busy collecting documents to show that we deliver quality. Quality is, of course, defined from above, at the University Grants Commission. Little discussion of what exactly we are doing in pursuing quality has occurred at my university. The quality assurance process construes the student and teacher as equally dispassionate. The teacher, a technically sound, professional, delivers carefully planned lessons designed to create “employable” “products” suited to the job market. Whether the student is indeed a product, what employable means in a non-existent job market, and whether our students could aspire to something else – such as changing the world – have never truly been discussed.

The system is static and sterile and all the planning, based on predetermined prototypes for “products” (the graduates), have made the system and us distant from the problems that surround us and that we confront in our own lives. Our teaching does not capture the charged experiences of our students, the country’s disarray, compounded by war and violence around the globe.

Similarly, in research undertaken at universities, “Quality” is judged by journal rankings. The more desired publications, the ones the system salivates over, are inaccessible to us as our libraries cannot afford them. Content these outlets deem hot and sexy, and worthy of publication, may do little to address our problems. The problems and content, such publications attract, are designed to respond to the needs of academics and publishing companies in distant lands, who control the academic publishing industry. Quality in research has removed us from this moment and the reality that is our crisis.

This, to me, is a significant part of the sluggishness with which universities have responded to our national problems. Another is likely to be our salaries that have cushioned the blow that has affected much of our population. My bigger point, however, is to highlight the reform process through which universities are trying to improve, that it does little to address the present needs of the nation.

An alternative in the making

I see within the ‘GotaGo’ protests an alternative forming. There’s a fluidity, an openness, a space for all within those places of protest, to speak and be heard. This is by contrast to universities, with their heavily guarded gates that let only the legitimate in, CCTV cameras, dress codes, and a hierarchy that stifles the other.

Of course, the seeming openness of the protests is limited. Some students tell me that critique of the IMF is out of bounds, although who makes these determinations is unclear. Symbols of patriotism, the national flag and the national anthem are very much a part of protests – symbols that for minorities can be intimidating and marginalizing.

I also worry that just as past governments have used these symbols of nationhood to consolidate power, and shy away from issues that truly reflect our human experiences, this time, too, they will be used to hide the problems of the economically, socially and politically marginalized; silenced for the good of the collective. We see this already. Concerns that are particularly of importance to minority communities, such as the removal of the PTA, acknowledgment of war-related disappearances, demilitarization, and issues of displacement, are shoved aside as divisive and secondary. Yet, the ‘GotaGo’ protest spaces offer a contrast to the universities in which we have no time to even think. It offers us new conceptions of free education, free universities, that can feed our process of reforming education.

The place for the Arts in Free education…

I see the Arts as central to such reforms. In this column, we have expressed concern over the systematic marginalization of Arts subjects, within our educational system. Policies underfund these subjects, treat them as cheap alternatives to the hard sciences and technologies. Yet, these are the very subjects that can harness our imagination, help us articulate the most profound of ideas, and potentially be transformational.

Last week, at the GotaGoGama, someone got on a stool and spoke. I took a good look at her; thinking I would see more of her in the future; I wanted to remember her face for when that happened. She drew a huge crowd through her impassioned speech. At one point she dismissed those who rejected the art, music, and drama at GotaGoGama as a carnival that diluted the cause. She named a series of artists, poets, authors, who changed the world. “Weren’t they revolutionaries?” she shouted, “Didn’t they spark revolutions? Didn’t they change the world?”. It is also the Arts that play centerstage in the GotaGoGama teach-ins. Strong Arts programmes can give us the language to envision and create the democratic and peaceful future that we all crave right now.

Grounding ourselves and opening spaces

I hope this moment transforms our universities and education system. I continue my work — teaching my predesigned classes, getting ready for quality assessments, working as usual. I worry about our students and the lack of funds to operate, and worry about my son, and shortages of cooking gas and food at home. Within this space, between normalcy and chaos, lies small opportunities to participate in this moment, whether simply participating as an individual, or as FUTA in protests, or in discussions. We are doing this now, in small ways.

My wish, however, is for something more for my university and work. I would like my teaching, research and everything I do at the university to reflect the reality of our country, to address the problems that we face as a society, particularly those on the margins. If we can transform our universities to have that organic quality, which conceives of “quality” as being immediately responsive to our problems, of being transgressive, as free education should be, and as very much a part of the moment, then as far as education is concerned, this moment will have had an unmeasurable effect on our collective future. We would then be teaching and researching in a way that moves with the people and the moment. How beautiful that would be…

(The author teaches at the University of Peradeniya)

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

All News Advertisement

Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

6 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the prgressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world or democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

7 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

7 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.