Features

Experiential learning in higher education

Published

1 year ago

2024/09/17

by Avanka Fernando

Reading the manifestos of presidential candidates in the run-up to the elections, many search for hope for the future. Studying the content in the manifestos on higher education, I soon realised that they engage little with the ‘real’ subjects that occupy my thoughts, for instance, the everyday challenges of those working in the Sri Lankan university system. These include the endless responsibilities of an academic, the desire to engage in impactful research amidst pressures of having to ‘produce’ and ‘publish’, balancing excessive administrative loads with teaching and research, addressing numerous issues of students, coping with everyday interactions of academic, non-academic staff, administrators, and striving to co-create a meaningful learning experience. Reflecting on these myriad tasks in everyday university life, I found a glimmer of hope in a subject close to my heart, experiential learning. While drawing on my experiences with students and communities in Sri Lankan universities of over a decade or more, this piece primarily focuses on a recent field experience from 2024.

Experiential learning has been a strong component in my department at the University of Colombo, where Sociology honours students attend an intensive field training programme in their third year. In addition, they conduct extensive independent research in their final year, and, as of more recently, engage in internships. Students following General degrees also participate in practicums. During the field training programme, students practice research methods learnt during their degree programme in different field settings, interact actively with diverse communities, experience everyday issues encountered in Sri Lanka, and are exposed to government administrative systems, such as Divisional Secretaries, Grama Niladharis, Public Health Inspectors, administrators, community officers, police officers, samithi and community members. However, over the years, the sustainability of these experiential learning components in our curriculum has been challenged. Field training programmes have been at risk of being discontinued due to budgetary restrictions and administrative stipulations have a detrimental effect on this fundamental aspect of student learning. Moreover, the current emphasis on outcomes-based learning and tightly structured semesters have left students with limited time and opportunities for problem-solving and reflection.

Learning as a process of learning, unlearning, and relearning

In our recently completed field training programme, students and staff visited five villages, comprising villages with Sinhala residents, estates with Tamil speaking communities, and mixed villages (Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim) in the Ratnapura district. Students spent the mornings practicing research methods (i.e., questionnaires, interviews, observation, focus group discussions and community participatory methods) in the field, while evenings were spent presenting their findings and reflecting on their experiences.

The first day of presentations were filled with first impressions regarding the communities. Ideas were often framed in terms of personal value-judgements and societal stereotypes. The students presented ambitious conclusions regarding people, the communities, and the social structure. Initial student presentations characterised the villages as ‘dushkara’ (difficult), and the villagers as ‘nuugath’ (uneducated) and ‘duppath’ (poor). Undeniably, many villages were “dushkara”, with limited access to transport networks, educational resources, and health services. Roads to people’s houses were precarious, housing was in bad repair, and, despite residents paying monthly maintenance costs and politicians making grand promises, limited infrastructural improvements had taken place. Experiential learning also involved staff providing extensive feedback after presentations, often reminding students to look beyond the surface and not to jump to conclusions, based on a day’s observations.

It was evident that as the days progressed, students grappled in learning, unlearning, and relearning. For example, on day three, a student suggested that, contrary to popular stereotypes, these communities were not ‘uneducated’ and ‘poor’. He highlighted examples of members of these communities who were in the formal education system, spoke of their educational aspirations, and also discussed other forms of knowledge prevalent in the community. It was heartening to hear students reflect on processes, discuss ideas about people, navigate multiple narratives, observe and reflect on how things worked and discuss what mattered most to people.

Learning as engaging with the world

Experiential learning programmes provide students opportunities to extend their experience beyond classrooms and gain insights into a multifaceted world. During field training, students not only engaged with communities, but interacted with community/religious leaders, teachers, and government officials. On the first day, students met government officials and community leaders and listened to their perspectives. Later, they visited the villages in groups, and engaged with various communities. On the eve of day one, when they returned from the field, some students commented on the lack of government officials’ community involvement. While the immediate tendency was to blame government officials, students were soon reminded of their excessive workloads, their allocated areas constituting far more than the government stipulated population, and the everyday challenges they encountered due to the distance between the allocated villages and where they lived. These officers frankly discussed the numerous challenges in daily life explaining how they impacted their effectiveness in the field. These experiences helped students to navigate multiple perspectives, and to respect diverse groups of people and communities.

Learning and reflecting together in community

Experiential learning is central to transitioning students from individual centric learning to forming learning communities. While students learnt from people in the field, they also learnt from each other. As staff members who have accompanied several batches of students on field training over the years, we have been slightly perturbed by responses from contemporary batches, especially those who have enrolled after COVID-19 and other national crises. At times, students displayed a lack of engagement with those in the field, there appeared to be a regular need for selfies, and strong expressions of individuality as opposed to collective work, both in the field and in the presentations. These observations could not merely be dismissed as a generational vice of ‘Gen Z’. Instead, we were fascinated by these different forms of expression, and more importantly, these provided us perfect teaching opportunities.

In the classrooms, students encounter limited student-lecturer interaction. However, in the field, power dynamics drastically change. Students gaped open-mouthed as lecturers, often led by the most senior of them, waded through streams and leech covered areas to reach the villages. Others traversed barefoot in the blazing sun participating in community festivals, still others engaged in colourful rituals and practices of the communities. These experiences challenged the stereotypical role of the lecturer as a “sage on the stage”, instead lecturers became “guides by their side”. These impressions were consolidated through walking and learning alongside them, challenging their ideas, and even reluctantly appearing in selfies with them.

Another key lesson was the importance of peer-learning and group work. Initially, students who were more confident and verbose were prone to take the forefront. However, students soon realised that experiential learning was not solitary learning, but involved teamwork. Each student had to demonstrate skills, practice and mastery of research methods for each group to collectively present their findings, fostering understanding of the importance of forming communities of learning.

Experiential learning as a transforming process

As Paulo Freire observes (1974), the process of learning involves “reflection and action upon the world, in order to transform it.” Not only does experiential learning reap many benefits for students to learn, and practice research skills, acquire ‘soft skills’, and work in groups, it also requires them to engage in reflective thinking and problem-solving. Returning to our recent field training programme, students were encouraged to identify problems, co-create solutions, and take action. Conversations with community leaders helped identify areas in which students and the department could intervene. Students and staff even reflected on how the structure of the field training programmes, practical placements, research methods and theories could change.

In conclusion, in envisaging the future of higher education, it is essential to recognise the significance of experiential learning and strengthen existing programmes that integrate transformative learning into the curriculum. As mentioned at the onset, the rhetoric touted by the political powers that be, often promote ambitious and unrealistic plans rarely relevant to ground realities and needs of everyday university life. My initial exhaustion in reading the manifestos and future plans for education emerged from the sense of disconnect between political rhetoric and the everyday. Although one might place hope on elections and politicians who offer great plans and visions for the future of education, it might be more pertinent to go beyond manifestos and election propaganda, and engage with the realities of everyday life in the country.

Experiential learning emphasises the significance of ordinary people and concrete experience, the importance of people’s life-worlds, community strengths and resources, and what matters to them. Hence, to invest in experiential learning, is to nurture the potential that prevails in ordinary people and communities, it is to go beyond individual centric agendas and collaborate with each other, it is to listen, reflect and learn from each other in this deeply fragmented society. This would be when learning becomes transformative.

(Avanka Fernando is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo)

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

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Features

Ranking public services with AI — A roadmap to reviving institutions like SriLankan Airlines

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/13

Thilina Walpola

Efficacy measures an organisation’s capacity to achieve its mission and intended outcomes under planned or optimal conditions. It differs from efficiency, which focuses on achieving objectives with minimal resources, and effectiveness, which evaluates results in real-world conditions. Today, modern AI tools, using publicly available data, enable objective assessment of the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s government institutions.

Among key public bodies, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka emerges as the most efficacious, outperforming the Department of Inland Revenue, Sri Lanka Customs, the Election Commission, and Parliament. In the financial and regulatory sector, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) ranks highest, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Among state-owned enterprises, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) leads in efficacy, followed by Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank. Other institutions assessed included the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and the Sri Lanka Transport Board. At the lower end of the spectrum were Lanka Sathosa and Sri Lankan Airlines, highlighting a critical challenge for the national economy.

Sri Lankan Airlines, consistently ranked at the bottom, has long been a financial drain. Despite successive governments’ reform attempts, sustainable solutions remain elusive.

Globally, the most profitable airlines operate as highly integrated, technology-enabled ecosystems rather than as fragmented departments. Operations, finance, fleet management, route planning, engineering, marketing, and customer service are closely coordinated, sharing real-time data to maximise efficiency, safety, and profitability.

The challenge for Sri Lankan Airlines is structural. Its operations are fragmented, overly hierarchical, and poorly aligned. Simply replacing the CEO or senior leadership will not address these deep-seated weaknesses. What the airline needs is a cohesive, integrated organisational ecosystem that leverages technology for cross-functional planning and real-time decision-making.

The government must urgently consider restructuring Sri Lankan Airlines to encourage:

=Joint planning across operational divisions

=Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making

=Continuous cross-functional consultation

=Collaborative strategic decisions on route rationalisation, fleet renewal, partnerships, and cost management, rather than exclusive top-down mandates

Sustainable reform requires systemic change. Without modernised organisational structures, stronger accountability, and aligned incentives across divisions, financial recovery will remain out of reach. An integrated, performance-oriented model offers the most realistic path to operational efficiency and long-term viability.

Reforming loss-making institutions like Sri Lankan Airlines is not merely a matter of leadership change — it is a structural overhaul essential to ensuring these entities contribute productively to the national economy rather than remain perpetual burdens.

By Chula Goonasekera – Citizen Analyst

Features

Why Pi Day?

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/13

Thilina Walpola

International Day of Mathematics falls tomorrow

The approximate value of Pi (π) is 3.14 in mathematics. Therefore, the day 14 March is celebrated as the Pi Day. In 2019, UNESCO proclaimed 14 March as the International Day of Mathematics.

Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians figured out that the circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times its diameter. But they could not come up with an exact value for this ratio although they knew that it is a constant. This constant was later named as π which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.

Archimedes

It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes (250 BC) who was able to find an upper bound and a lower bound for this constant. He drew a circle of diameter one unit and drew hexagons inside and outside the circle such that the sides of each hexagon touch the sides of the circle. In mathematics the circle passing through all vertices of a polygon is called a ‘circumcircle’ and the largest circle that fits inside a polygon tangent to all its sides is called an ‘incircle’. The total length of the smaller hexagon then becomes the lower bound of π and the length of the hexagon outside the circle is the upper bound. He realised that by increasing the number of sides of the polygon can make the bounds get closer to the value of Pi and increased the number of sides to 12,24,48 and 60. He argued that by increasing the number of sides will ultimately result in obtaining the original circle, thereby laying the foundation for the theory of limits. He ended up with the lower bound as 22/7 and the upper bound 223/71. He could not continue his research as his hometown Syracuse was invaded by Romans and was killed by one of the soldiers. His last words were ‘do not disturb my circles’, perhaps a reference to his continuing efforts to find the value of π to a greater accuracy.

Archimedes can be considered as the father of geometry. His contributions revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus. He invented the pulley and the hydraulic screw for drawing water from a well. He also discovered the law of hydrostatics. He formulated the law of levers which states that a smaller weight placed farther from a pivot can balance a much heavier weight closer to it. He famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the earth”.

Mathematicians have found many expressions for π as a sum of infinite series that converge to its value. One such famous series is the Leibniz Series found in 1674 by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, which is given below.

π = 4 ( 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – ………….)

The Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan came up with a magnificent formula in 1910. The short form of the formula is as follows.

π = 9801/(1103 √8)

For practical applications an approximation is sufficient. Even NASA uses only the approximation 3.141592653589793 for its interplanetary navigation calculations.

It is not just an interesting and curious number. It is used for calculations in navigation, encryption, space exploration, video game development and even in medicine. As π is fundamental to spherical geometry, it is at the heart of positioning systems in GPS navigations. It also contributes significantly to cybersecurity. As it is an irrational number it is an excellent foundation for generating randomness required in encryption and securing communications. In the medical field, it helps to calculate blood flow rates and pressure differentials. In diagnostic tools such as CT scans and MRI, pi is an important component in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques.

This elegant, never-ending number demonstrates how mathematics transforms into practical applications that shape our world. The possibilities of what it can do are infinite as the number itself. It has become a symbol of beauty and complexity in mathematics. “It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.” said Sophie Germain.

Mathematics fans are intrigued by this irrational number and attempt to calculate it as far as they can. In March 2022, Emma Haruka Iwao of Japan calculated it to 100 trillion decimal places in Google Cloud. It had taken 157 days. The Guinness World Record for reciting the number from memory is held by Rajveer Meena of India for 70000 decimal places over 10 hours.

Happy Pi Day!

The author is a senior examiner of the International Baccalaureate in the UK and an educational consultant at the Overseas School of Colombo.

by R N A de Silva

Features

Sheer rise of Realpolitik making the world see the brink

Published

3 days ago

2026/03/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

A combined US-Israel attack on Iran.(BBC)

The recent humanly costly torpedoing of an Iranian naval vessel in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone by a US submarine has raised a number of issues of great importance to international political discourse and law that call for elucidation. It is best that enlightened commentary is brought to bear in such discussions because at present misleading and uninformed speculation on questions arising from the incident are being aired by particularly jingoistic politicians of Sri Lanka’s South which could prove deleterious.

As matters stand, there seems to be no credible evidence that the Indian state was aware of the impending torpedoing of the Iranian vessel but these acerbic-tongued politicians of Sri Lanka’s South would have the local public believe that the tragedy was triggered with India’s connivance. Likewise, India is accused of ‘embroiling’ Sri Lanka in the incident on account of seemingly having prior knowledge of it and not warning Sri Lanka about the impending disaster.

It is plain that a process is once again afoot to raise anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. An obligation is cast on the Sri Lankan government to ensure that incendiary speculation of the above kind is defeated and India-Sri Lanka relations are prevented from being in any way harmed. Proactive measures are needed by the Sri Lankan government and well meaning quarters to ensure that public discourse in such matters have a factual and rational basis. ‘Knowledge gaps’ could prove hazardous.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt that Sri Lanka’s sovereignty was violated by the US because the sinking of the Iranian vessel took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While there is no international decrying of the incident, and this is to be regretted, Sri Lanka’s helplessness and small player status would enable the US to ‘get away with it’.

Could anything be done by the international community to hold the US to account over the act of lawlessness in question? None is the answer at present. This is because in the current ‘Global Disorder’ major powers could commit the gravest international irregularities with impunity. As the threadbare cliché declares, ‘Might is Right’….. or so it seems.

Unfortunately, the UN could only merely verbally denounce any violations of International Law by the world’s foremost powers. It cannot use countervailing force against violators of the law, for example, on account of the divided nature of the UN Security Council, whose permanent members have shown incapability of seeing eye-to-eye on grave matters relating to International Law and order over the decades.

The foregoing considerations could force the conclusion on uncritical sections that Political Realism or Realpolitik has won out in the end. A basic premise of the school of thought known as Political Realism is that power or force wielded by states and international actors determine the shape, direction and substance of international relations. This school stands in marked contrast to political idealists who essentially proclaim that moral norms and values determine the nature of local and international politics.

While, British political scientist Thomas Hobbes, for instance, was a proponent of Political Realism, political idealism has its roots in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and latterly Friedrich Hegel of Germany, to name just few such notables.

On the face of it, therefore, there is no getting way from the conclusion that coercive force is the deciding factor in international politics. If this were not so, US President Donald Trump in collaboration with Israeli Rightist Premier Benjamin Natanyahu could not have wielded the ‘big stick’, so to speak, on Iran, killed its Supreme Head of State, terrorized the Iranian public and gone ‘scot-free’. That is, currently, the US’ impunity seems to be limitless.

Moreover, the evidence is that the Western bloc is reuniting in the face of Iran’s threats to stymie the flow of oil from West Asia to the rest of the world. The recent G7 summit witnessed a coming together of the foremost powers of the global North to ensure that the West does not suffer grave negative consequences from any future blocking of western oil supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel is having a ‘free run’ of the Middle East, so to speak, picking out perceived adversarial powers, such as Lebanon, and militarily neutralizing them; once again with impunity. On the other hand, Iran has been bringing under assault, with no questions asked, Gulf states that are seen as allying with the US and Israel. West Asia is facing a compounded crisis and International Law seems to be helplessly silent.

Wittingly or unwittingly, matters at the heart of International Law and peace are being obfuscated by some pro-Trump administration commentators meanwhile. For example, retired US Navy Captain Brent Sadler has cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for the right to self or collective self-defence of UN member states in the face of armed attacks, as justifying the US sinking of the Iranian vessel (See page 2 of The Island of March 10, 2026). But the Article makes it clear that such measures could be resorted to by UN members only ‘ if an armed attack occurs’ against them and under no other circumstances. But no such thing happened in the incident in question and the US acted under a sheer threat perception.

Clearly, the US has violated the Article through its action and has once again demonstrated its tendency to arbitrarily use military might. The general drift of Sadler’s thinking is that in the face of pressing national priorities, obligations of a state under International Law could be side-stepped. This is a sure recipe for international anarchy because in such a policy environment states could pursue their national interests, irrespective of their merits, disregarding in the process their obligations towards the international community.

Moreover, Article 51 repeatedly reiterates the authority of the UN Security Council and the obligation of those states that act in self-defence to report to the Council and be guided by it. Sadler, therefore, could be said to have cited the Article very selectively, whereas, right along member states’ commitments to the UNSC are stressed.

However, it is beyond doubt that international anarchy has strengthened its grip over the world. While the US set destabilizing precedents after the crumbling of the Cold War that paved the way for the current anarchic situation, Russia further aggravated these degenerative trends through its invasion of Ukraine. Stepping back from anarchy has thus emerged as the prime challenge for the world community.