by Jehan Perera

The new government’s approach to major national issues appears to be one of caution and of continuing in the direction set by its predecessor. This is most clearly visible in its adherence to the IMF agreement and its strict conditions. The government has also retained key officials dealing with the economy despite having subjected them to criticism in the run-up to the presidential election. The government has also adopted the same cautious approach with regard to the most immediate international challenge it faced in the form of the UNHRC Resolution 50/1, which came up for decision in Geneva last week. The government adopted the same policy as practised by its two predecessor governments headed by presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe, though it framed its rejection of the resolution in more conciliatory language.

Critics of the government have sought to point out that it is reaping the benefits of the policies introduced by the previous government which lost its popularity due to taking those very decisions.  However, the caution is likely to continue till the general elections take place on November 14. This has been beneficial to the country’s economic and social stability and is not to be caviled at.  There was considerable concern expressed by business leaders in the country and also the IMF and international community that the economy was on a knife edge and could plunge into a negative state if there was a change of government. This may explain the very positive initiatives taken by the government to ensure that there was no post-election violence. These included the president’s call that the people were not to celebrate his victory in the traditional manner by cooking and partaking of milk rice and lighting fire crackers. Such actions in the past led to violence, destroyed innocent lives and harmed the country’s reputation and attractiveness to foreign investors.

The government strategy to perform well in the forthcoming general election and win a majority of parliamentary seats is based on consolidating its success, and good reputation gained, at the presidential election.  At the general election the government will be seeking a positive vote of confidence from a larger group of voters who will be approving of their first two months in power. The vast majority of the voters who made up the 42 percent who voted for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake did so in the form of a protest vote. They saw no benefit to them in voting on traditional lines while those they voted for would enjoy the best the country had to offer. They were rejecting the other candidates whom they saw as offering little or nothing new in terms of either development policy or cleaning up the corruption that has become part and parcel of a system. This time around, however, the government expects a positive vote which is likely to occur in most parts of the country.

MINDS MEET

It was noteworthy that the president did not obtain the majority of votes in those parts of the country in which the ethnic and religious minorities predominate.  This may be on account of the fact that for the past five decades since it was formed, the JVP, which is the mother party of the NPP did not support the aspirations of the ethnic and religious minorities, but shared the general view of the ethnic and religious majority about the threat posed by them to the country’s unity and sovereignty due to their demands. During the presidential election campaign, President Dissanayake recognised the harm these old attitudes had done. He gave speeches that demonstrated a perfect understanding of the discriminatory practices in the past in relation to the minorities. He empathised with their sufferings and pledged to make a genuine effort to solve their problems.

After the first three weeks of the new government’s performance the ethnic and religious minorities appear to be reassured that the NPP is not the JVP they once knew.  During a recent visit to the east, and meeting with the Tamil and Muslim civil society, religious clergy and academics there, the impression was of a meeting of minds that encompassed the entire country. The desire for “system change” and for “new faces” is universal.  Accompanying this was an antipathy towards the traditional political parties of the north and east, and of the politicians whom they had elected time and again but who had failed to deliver the results that would improve their lives.

At the present time there is no counterpart to the NPP in the areas in which the ethnic and religious minorities predominate.  It is therefore likely that many of them will want to vote for the NPP at the forthcoming general elections just like their fellow citizens who belong to the ethnic and religious majority.  The fact that nothing controversial has happened to rock the boat or sink the economy in the past three weeks would strengthen their willingness to opt for the new political party and for new leaders. Just as in the rest of the country, there appears to be a popular mood in favour of rejecting those who have not delivered positive results for the past seven decades and to welcome the new. However, NPP could have been more realistic in selection of candidates. Those who have been loyal to the party, but are little known to the voting public, may not necessarily be the ones that the people have confidence in.

LIMITED CONSULTATION

There were concerns in this vein expressed in the east that need to be kept in mind. Limited consultations appear to have taken place with regard to the choice of candidates that the NPP has put forward for election.  The candidates appear to have been selected in an exclusive rather than an inclusive manner by the party hierarchy.  This may not be a problem in the areas where the JVP has traditionally obtained votes and had their membership which has been visible and known to the people in those areas.  However, in areas in which the ethnic and religious minorities predominate, the JVP members are less well known and less visible.  This may call for a more intense process of consultation with the larger civil society to identify those candidates who have served the people well and obtained recognition from them.

If the above is the first challenge that the government needs to address, the second is for the government to express its commitment to the devolution of power which is an article of faith to the ethnic and religious minorities, as well as to the international community.  In his election manifesto and speeches President Dissanayake pledged to implement the 13th Amendment to the constitution.  In any democracy, it is the majority that governs. Where ethnic and religious identities come into play, there will be permanent majorities and permanent minorities that the electoral system cannot make equal. It is only through devolution of power to provincial governments that are elected by local majorities that minorities can feel a sense of inclusion.

A three phase programme is recommended in this regard by civil society members in the east.  The first would be the immediate implementation of the 13th Amendment, even with their limited and restricted powers, by conducting the provincial council elections without further delay.  Second would be to restore to the 13th Amendment those powers that have not yet been devolved though in the constitution or that have been chipped away deliberately or through neglect.  Third would be to improve the scheme of devolution in the comprehensive constitutional reform programme that the government has pledged to undertake. Quite apart from facilitating development by recognizing that different regions have different economic needs and opportunities the principle of devolution also pays heed to the wise words of the great Norwegian peace scholar, Prof. Johan Galtung, who said in Sri Lanka during the time of the LTTE war, “We prefer to be ruled by our own kind even if they are a little unkind.” The process of consultation on these and other matters needs to commence sooner rather than later.

by Shamala Kumar

This article is based on a talk on transformative policies for education delivered at the Centre for Women’s Research on October 9th, 2024.

The problem

With government change and cautious hope in the air, I thought I would allow myself to dream, to hope for a different world, in the way we view education. First, however, I begin with some hard questions about practicalities that are vital to the welfare of our students and teachers and to the functioning of the educational system as a whole: why is it that food insecurities among students remain unaddressed in the midst of this crisis? Why was reintroducing the school midday meal programme delayed so long? Where are the initiatives to curtail rising self-harm among students?

When we began working as the Kuppi Collective, COVID had struck, and we were teaching online to students we could not see and whose many problems we could not know. As even asking after students who never joined on zoom caused pushback, we continued to teach, not quite fully ourselves, alienated as we were; not teaching really, instead only “performing” our material and disregarding, for the most part, the death and destruction around us.

Things have not changed much since, because even today, in post-COVID times, we teach with little regard to the students who must skip meals and cope silently with unspeakable worries during this economic crisis. We do not speak of the deaths of Palestinians, the ruins that once were Palestinian universities or violence in our society. Our education remains abstract and disconnected from reality.

As governments have done little to address the crises in education, families have had to shoulder the bulk of the burden of providing a decent education. In accessing education, parents fight to get their children to a “good” school. This alone confirms that there are educational disparities, with some schools unable to provide even basic facilities and others seemingly serving as passports to the highest echelons of society. Parents struggle to meet mounting educational costs, to cope when welfare programmes have forsaken them, or to educate students with disabilities.

A dream

Can we expect more from education? We must change for the better, but what does that actually mean? I would like education to be transformative of our own aspirations and our social structures, as it, too, transforms to respond to us and our needs. My dream begins by framing educational spaces as instruments, institutions and manifestations of social justice, where scholarship helps build institutions, communities, and processes that further the principles of democracy, simultaneously recognising the fact that universities are capable of both reinforcing existing power structures and changing them. This is a political endeavour and begins with understanding the politics of difference, of social hierarchies, inequalities and social fault lines. Its politics must be liberatory and unifying in the sense that it forges relationships that strengthen solidarity.

Access to education must be a central concern in any transformative effort, and questions such as who has access to what and for what purpose and conversely who is left out and why, must be addressed. When access is classed, gendered or denied to those marginalized or when education reinforces existing structures of power that further marginalize those already made vulnerable, transformative education cannot happen.

Therefore, this dream begins with a commitment to free education. During the preceding funding-starved years, universities have evolved into commercial enterprises, seeking “generated funds” to replace state funds. This has had a cost, with staff spending less time on research and core teaching functions, engaging in market-friendly activities, such as trendy-sounding certificate courses that generate money that are often not designed to be transformative. Most disturbing, however, are efforts to expand fee-levying degree programmes throughout the system without regard to how impoverished Sri Lankans have become and how inaccessible such programmes would be for so many.

A truly free university must foster safe spaces to ask questions that challenge the dysfunctionalities of our society and the system that maintains that dysfunctionality. Asking uncomfortable questions about social concerns require spaces where scholars truly dare to think and speak. Highly structured universities in which teachers have to demonstrate they have achieved measurable learning outcomes, and publication points for research, and where students must cram their time into inflexible timetables and heavy workloads seem alien to such questioning.

Education must strive to be free of violence, ranging from the violence of ragging and bullying to the violence of being excluded from alienating content. For instance, a teacher who depicts a dagoba as integral to village life in their lectures, ignores religious plurality and makes other types of villages less legitimate. Education must also strive to be equally aspirational and meaningful for all students, providing students with the possibilities of a “good life,” no matter who they are and what that life may look like.

Finally, education must include strong social sciences and humanities programmes to provide the scholar/student with the language to recognise unjust social structures that the present focus on technology-oriented training does not provide. These subject streams must be made richer and become more than simply places to house students when governments fail to spend on science streams. Even if the humanities require less equipment, they do need the personalised attention of good teachers capable of guiding students to articulate their realities and those of their communities, critically.

Where do we begin?

While we tend to see the bad in our education system, there is actually a lot to be happy about. Recently, the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Education, in responding to the National Educational Policy Framework (NEPF, 2023), stated that education policy must recognize: free education as a fundamental principle, education as a fundamental right; equity and justice as overarching norms in education and; that education is only effective when students have their basic needs fulfilled. This statement holds promise.

We must also recognise the vestiges of a strong system of education that exists in the country. A well-established network of schools, universities, training institutes, and funding systems provide a strong structure. Public funding of education has meant that there is some independence for schools and universities to build a better system, to ask difficult questions, and to demand something better.

The Aragalaya brought with it calls for consultation with the people. During the 2012 FUTA million signatures campaign, the nuanced and rich responses of people who informed us of what afflicts education, attests that reforms must start with hearing people’s concerns. I believe fashioning a transformative system of education must begin with a consultative process that can achieve a broad consensus. Such an effort would increase the public’s trust in our educational institutions and may suggest that the government is serving the people, rather than thwarting their aspirations.

As we strive for reform, we must also question assumptions driving the reform proposals of the past few decades. For instance, is the present push to narrowly focus on technology and jobs serving us well? Is quality assurance and standardization helping or reducing the role of students and teachers in education? Is it always possible to measure outcomes? How, for instance, can the excitement of exploring thrilling ideas or the awesomeness of beauty, and the humanness of solidarity be measured? Can corporate management principles that reduce teachers to “knowledge workers” who simply teach and do research to achieve management targets, help us fashion the universities of our dreams?

I believe these reform efforts are misguided and lack perspective. I suggest, simply, that we step back and ask important questions of what we want from education, honestly and thoughtfully, and learn from other countries that have experimented with the types of reforms that our past governments have proposed. Unfortunately, current education reforms are driven by external funders; true reforms will require that the state diverts its own funds to education rather than rely on others.

Settling for greatness in troubled times

For too long, we, the public, have talked and felt only helplessness about education in this country. Some of the blame resides in a concerted effort by powerful actors to drill into us that we cannot afford the luxury of hope or that we are not entitled to want more or to claim what that “more’ looks like. There are alternatives though. During these troubled times, our crises could be viewed as opportunities to come to grips with the deeply dysfunctional aspects of our society and build on what we already have. I hope we can step back, revisit problems, and aspire for greatness in our education system. But we must dream. I propose that we articulate a clear vision and bravely fashion a policy of education that can help us strive to achieve it.

(Shamala Kumar 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 hierarchie)

The LunuDehi-Bathiya and Santhush (BNS) combination has been creating a storm with their music, especially overseas.

Of course, their music is very infectious here, too, but the demand for them overseas is stupendous…and they do it differently, as well.

Their unplugged concerts are crowd-pullers where they perform using all acoustic instruments – guitars, piano, brass instruments, violins, cajons, etc.

In fact, their next overseas unplugged concert will be in Australia.

BNS will be doing ‘Hadagasma’, a special edition Unplugged Concert at Palms at Crown, in Melbourne, on Sunday, 27th October, with LunuDehi providing the backing, using acoustic instruments.

The organisers are expecting a full house and it’s very likely that would happen as 70% of the tickets have already been purchased by fans of BNS/LuniDehi.