During my visits to several schools in villages and nearby semi-urban areas, I encountered a troubling contradiction at the heart of science and mathematics education. These subjects—meant to explain the natural world and sharpen human reasoning—were being taught almost entirely without laboratories, experiments, or meaningful connections to everyday life. Classrooms were filled with definitions, formulas, and copied notes, while practical spaces remained locked, underused, or treated merely as formalities for inspection days. Students could recite laws of motion or algebraic identities, yet struggled to explain why iron rusts, how soap removes grease, or why pond water turns muddy after rainfall. From the very beginning, science and mathematics were presented not as processes of understanding, but as exercises in memorisation.

This neglect is not confined to science alone; mathematics suffers from the same fate. Simple and powerful activities—verifying the Pythagorean theorem using paper cut-outs, understanding ratios by measuring everyday objects, exploring symmetry with mirrors and paper folding, or demonstrating probability through coins and dice—are rarely conducted. Concepts that should be visible and tangible remain abstract, intimidating, and disconnected from daily experience. As a result, students begin to fear mathematics rather than reason with it, and science becomes a collection of facts rather than a way of thinking.

What makes this situation particularly ironic is that learning through observation and experience lies at the very foundation of human knowledge. Aristotle argued that understanding begins with careful observation of the natural world. Galileo Galilei transformed science by insisting that truth must be tested through experiment rather than accepted on authority. India’s own intellectual heritage—from Aryabhata’s mathematical reasoning to Bhâskara II’s work on algebra and geometry—was grounded in logical demonstration and conceptual clarity, not rote repetition. Across cultures and centuries, great thinkers treated theory and practice as inseparable. Yet, in many modern classrooms, science and mathematics are taught as if understanding were optional. Ignoring this legacy is not progress; it is a retreat from the very traditions that shaped civilization.

The consequences of this failure extend far beyond pedagogy. When schools do not teach science and mathematics through understanding and experimentation, they inadvertently fuel the commercialisation of education. Students who fail to grasp concepts in classrooms are pushed towards private tutors, coaching centres, and question–answer guidebooks that promise examination success at a price. For families—especially in rural areas and low-income households—this creates severe economic pressure. Scarce resources are diverted towards tuition fees simply to compensate for institutional shortcomings. Education, instead of remaining a public responsibility, increasingly becomes a market commodity.

Worse still, much of this commercial ecosystem reinforces the same rote-learning culture. Coaching centres drill students in predictable questions rather than nurturing inquiry or critical thinking. The outcome is deeply troubling: families pay more, students understand less, and education rewards memorisation over reasoning. The inequality this system produces is stark. Elite urban schools often provide laboratory exposure and activity-based learning, while students in government and low-fee private schools are left behind. Science, ironically, becomes a privilege rather than a public good.

This reality stands in sharp contrast to India’s policy rhetoric. We speak proudly of scientific temper, innovation, and a knowledge-driven future. National campaigns celebrate start-ups, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and scientific research. Yet in thousands of classrooms across the country, science is taught without experiments, curiosity, or context. Students memorise chemical reactions without ever witnessing a colour change or gas evolution. Mathematical ideas such as area, volume, and algebraic identities remain abstract because students are denied the opportunity to see, touch, and manipulate them. This contradiction lies at the heart of India’s learning crisis.

Over time, science and mathematics education have been reduced to examination performance. Laboratories exist largely on paper. Practical periods are routinely sacrificed in the name of “syllabus completion.” Hands-on learning is postponed indefinitely—sometimes until it is too late. For students from underprivileged backgrounds, the situation is even more severe. Access to functional laboratories is rare, and private coaching focuses almost exclusively on marks rather than meaning. This gap between policy promise and classroom reality is no longer accidental; it is structural.

The Constitution of India, under Article 51A(h), clearly states that it is the duty of every citizen to develop scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 repeatedly emphasises experiential learning, conceptual understanding, and critical thinking. Yet despite these commitments, science education in most government and low-fee private schools remains theory-heavy and exam-driven. Laboratories are often maintained to satisfy inspection checklists rather than to stimulate learning. This is not merely an educational failure; it is a policy failure.

Budgets are allocated for infrastructure, but there is little monitoring of actual usage. Teacher recruitment prioritises degrees over pedagogical skill. Training programmes emphasise documentation and digital compliance rather than experimentation and inquiry. Assessment systems reward correct answers, not curiosity, reasoning, or problem-solving. Under such conditions, expecting scientific temper to flourish is unrealistic.

I became acutely aware of this gap while interacting with school students in my own neighbourhood. Their curiosity was alive, their questions sincere—but their exposure to practical science was minimal. This realisation led to a simple initiative: starting a free, home-based science tutorial where children learn by doing. There are no fees, no coaching culture, and no examination pressure—only basic experiments using everyday materials such as bottles, wires, leaves, soil, vinegar, salt, and sunlight. The aim is not to produce toppers, but thinkers.

When a child sees an egg float in salt water, pressure is no longer an abstract idea. When turmeric changes colour in a soap solution, acids and bases suddenly make sense. When seeds germinate before their eyes, the science of life unfolds in real time, and biology becomes a living process rather than a printed chapter. When children understand air pressure through balloons and bottles, or observe how paper aeroplanes fly due to lift, airflow, and motion, physics comes alive. Similarly, in mathematics, children verify the Pythagorean theorem using paper squares, understand fractions and ratios by measuring everyday objects, explore symmetry through mirrors and paper folding, learn area and perimeter through cut-and-paste shapes, and grasp algebraic identities using square and rectangle models. Linear equations become intuitive when explained through balance models rather than memorised steps.

These moments of discovery leave a deeper imprint than any memorised answer ever can. Hands-on learning nurtures questioning. Children learn to observe carefully, make mistakes, and correct them—skills essential not only for scientists, but for responsible citizens. At a time when misinformation spreads rapidly, scientific temper is no longer optional; it is a social necessity.

Grassroots initiatives—free, home-based tutorials and community experiments—quietly demonstrate what formal systems often fail to deliver. Using low-cost, everyday materials, they restore the joy of discovery and the habit of inquiry. They remind us that education is not confined to institutions; it thrives wherever curiosity is allowed to breathe.

However, voluntary efforts cannot substitute for systemic reform. Schools must reopen laboratories not as showpieces, but as living spaces of learning. Mathematics laboratories must function alongside science labs to make abstract ideas visible and intuitive for students from Classes 6 to 10. Teacher training must prioritise experimentation over evaluation. Practical work must carry real academic weight, not token marks. Laboratories must be audited for functionality, not mere existence.

If India truly wants innovators rather than imitators, science must return to children’s hands. Until policy moves from declaration to implementation, we will continue producing students who know answers but do not understand how knowledge is created. A nation cannot innovate on slogans alone. Science education must be reimagined as a lived experience, not a theoretical promise. Sometimes, real education begins not in institutions, but in small spaces where curiosity is given the freedom to grow.

by Dr Debapriya Mukherjee ✍️
Former Senior Scientist
Central Pollution Control Board, India

I was on a long-distance bus when two young women sat behind my seat. As usual they started talking about their children. One woman said, “Kids of divorced parents are kicked back and forth like a football.” The image of a man kicking a football grabbed my attention. When parents go in different directions after a divorce, children become footballs between mother and father.

Any type of separation, or divorce, can have devastating consequences on children. Sometimes the custody of a girl is given to the mother at the conclusion of a divorce case. It is not easy for a girl to face life when she loses one of her parents for no fault on her part.

To a disgruntled couple divorce may be the only solution. For them a divorce has great appeal. Sometimes the sheer incompatibility may force the parents to seek a divorce. In law, however, incompatibility is not a ground for divorce. In order to file a case for divorce a spouse has to prove impotency at the time of marriage, malicious desertion or adultery. Our lawmakers are planning to introduce some amendments to the existing law. I do not know whether they are going to make it easy for parents to end their marriage through divorce. However, the aftereffects of a divorce will affect the children. Ending a marriage through divorce may be OK for the parties involved, but it is not totally satisfying to the kids.

Radical restructuring

No matter how much love and caring divorced parents devote to a child, it will not ease the radical restructuring of the child’s world. If you wish to probe the restructuring, launch a study of children of divorced families. The modern trend is that divorced parents continue to love and support their children although they do not live together.

A divorce usually splits an integrated family into two segments, each with its own nucleus. When parents and children live under one roof, kids become the nucleus. A divorced father or mother moves to the centre of his or her own new world leaving the children out. In happy families children grow up while becoming the centre of the family. After a divorce, children feel acute loneliness. They have no home to return to after school. Nobody is waiting for their arrival.

When children find that their parents have gone in different directions, they depend on their peers or try to deal with their problems alone. Like a blacksmith forges iron in the intense heat of a roaring fire, children forge their own values in the intense heat of their inner lives. They try to find a way out of their troubled life.

Role models

Human life has many core values. In a marriage children think that their parents are role models. They would never criticize their parents. After a divorce, children feel left out and begin to disrespect their parents. If you ask a child in a divorced family, he will say, “I love my mother, but I don’t respect her.” The same sentiments apply to the father as well.

Those who have read fairy tales are familiar with a dashing young man meeting a beautiful young woman. They fall in love and get married. They live happily with their children. However, the scenario has changed in the 21^st century. Today a dashing young man meets a beautiful young woman. They fall in love and live together. Sometimes they get married and produce children, but ultimately they get divorced.

The percentage of women who are married has declined in most Western countries. In the United States the number of married couples has increased over the past two decades. The institution of marriage has changed considerably. Apart from that, when people get married the probability of divorce is very high today. Although divorce rates have been declining in the United States since they peaked in 1981, about half of all first marriages ended in divorce. The rise in divorce is not confined to the United States. The divorce rate has accelerated almost in all the industrialised countries. Even in Asian countries, such as South Korea, the divorce rate is very high.

Adverse impact

Changes in marriage and divorce trends have doubled the number of single parent households in the United States and elsewhere. As a result, most children are forced to live with their mother or father until they turn 18. In most single parent families, it is the mother, rather than the father, with whom the children live. Single parent families are often economically less well off. This has an adverse impact on children. What is more, the separation of parents is often a painful experience for children. Sometimes children would blame themselves for the breakup of the family. There is evidence to suggest that children of divorced families are not well adjusted to face life’s problems than those who come from happy families.

John Gottman, a University of Washington psychologist, has studied the emotional glue that binds couples together and the corrosive feelings that can destroy marriages. An early warning signal that a marriage is in danger, Gottman finds, is harsh criticism. In a healthy marriage husband and wife feel free to argue on household matters. There is a difference between complaints and personal criticisms. In a complaint a wife specially states what is upsetting her. In a personal criticism she uses specific grievances to launch an attack on her husband. This kind of criticism leaves the husband ashamed. In his defence he might resort to stonewalling. He would withdraw from the conversation by responding with a stony expression and silence. It sends a powerful message. Stonewalling comes up mainly in marriages heading for trouble.

However much you try to prevent divorce, some marriages will go on the rocks and children will be left alone. Those who face such a situation need not worry unnecessarily. From an existential standpoint we are fundamentally alone despite the presence of our parents, friends and well-wishers. It is necessary to remember that we arrive and depart this life alone. Therefore you have to accept the naturalness of loneliness as a liberating feeling. Accept your loneliness as a tincture of your soul. Psychologist Carl Jung who spent much of his childhood alone said his loneliness opened him to dreams and a spiritual life. Throughout the ages mystics, artists and seers have tapped this emotional impetus for more extensive access to themselves.

If you happen to be a child of a broken family, this is the ideal time to improve your skills and face life bravely. There is nothing impossible to someone with a firm determination to reach his goal.

(karunaratners@gmail.com)
by R.S. Karunaratne ✍️

For nearly twenty years I have been writing a column for the Sunday Island. It has been a joyous ride for someone who is not a professional journalist, yet enjoying the thrill and enthusiasm of being a “deadline artist”, in however small a way. The ride began shortly after the 2005 presidential election when Rohan Edirisinha arranged for Kumar David and me to write for the Sunday Observer where Rajpal Abeynaike had just become the editor. Almost an year later, when Rajpal left the Sunday Observer, Vijaya Kumar, the Peradeniya Professor of Chemistry, arranged for us to switch to the Sunday Island where Manik de Silva was, and still is, editor.

After nearly sixty years in journalism, Manik still finds a different spark for each Sunday’s paper. He had been doing it weekly just as Prabath Sahabandu does it daily at The Island. They both have been very courteous and kind people to write for – especially for someone like me with a penchant for keep pushing the deadline until I make the final delivery. Besides Manik and Prabath, I have also had the pleasure of being tolerated by Malinda Seneviratne whenever he used to step in while Manik was away.

If a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson prime-ministerially opined so many long decades ago, twenty years are an eternity in everything. And with Donald Trump everyday can be an eternity. Whether privileged or cursed, I have obliged myself to bear weekly witness to: the storied arrival and the humiliating departure of the Rajapaksas in Sri Lanka; the virtual demise of the once mighty Congress and the enthronement of its a-secular nemesis – the RSS – under Narendra Modi and the BJP in India; the perpetual swings between calm and chaos in Pakistan and Bangladesh; the post Brexit emaciation of Europe and Britain; three papal changes in Vatican; Jacinda Ardern’s graceful assertion of feminist motherhood power in national politics in little New Zealand; and the growingly disgraceful assertion of vulgar political masculinity by Donald Trump in the mighty United States of America, after the ephemeron of Barack Obama had fleetingly come and gone. Not to mention the rape of Gaza by the Netanyahu government in Israel, and Putin’s bloody Ukraine mockery of the already tattered legacy of the Soviet Union.

Besides politics, or rather both as part and extension of politics, the 21st century is becoming the century of climate change marked by recurrent furies of nature; of cultural upheavals; and technological leaps into the uncertain. As the years roll by, we lose our companions in the many marches we make in life, and I have had more than my share of writing obituaries for personal friends and political figures. Among the many, I especially remember my two Peradeniya friends – Sivendran and Lakshman Tilakaratne, and post Peradeniya companions – Paul Caspersz, Upali Cooray, Silan Kadirgamar and Kumar David. The latter three and me were pioneers of the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality (MIRJE) and its activities in late 1970s and 1980s.

Kumar was also a fellow columnist in the Sunday Island, equally pedagogical and polemical. He passed away in October 2024, when I was in Prague with my wife, Amali. Uvindu Kurukulasuriya tracked me down to give me the news. The next day, Friday early morning, we were leaving for Berlin by train, and I wrote my appreciation of Kumar on my laptop, during the four hours between Prague and Berlin, and finished it on time to meet my deadline with Manik in Colombo.

In light of that effort, I would think that the good reader will understand my desire to share the gratification I felt when I later came across the generous editorial note by Michael Roberts, while republishing my appreciation in his (Thuppahi’s) Blog: “This is a comprehensive VALE — wide-ranging, balanced and cast in incisive prose. Like the subject of discussion — the one and only Kumar — it marks the quality of education in all branches of education in old Ceylon in the mid-20th century.”

A matter of Education

The larger purpose in the citation above is to pay homage to “the quality of education in all branches of education in old Ceylon in the mid-20th century,” of which I am still a living beneficiary. Suffice it to say given the circumstances of my childhood and upbringing, I got exposed to and got hooked on – matters of nationalism, electoral politics and constitutional questions, quite early in life. Obviously, my understanding of them grew over time abetted by experience and aided by deliberate efforts of self-teaching. These were parallel pre-occupations that I kept going along with my studies in the science stream directed towards entering the university for a degree in engineering.

Once in the university I did not shy away from seizing opportunities for externalizing and articulating my evolving sociopolitical positions through writing, in debates and public speaking. I was already known in school as having the flair for writing and speaking in both Tamil and English, and I continued these pursuits at the university. A contemporary medical student who was in the same hall of residence with me in our first year took to describing me as a ‘writer, speaker and a part-time engineering student.’

After university, while pursuing my career in Engineering, I joined the informal school of political journalism run by Hector Abhayavardhana and started writing for the political weekly The Nation that Hector edited. Hector Abhayavardhana was one of the more consummate left intellectuals of South Asia, shaped by nearly two decades of political living in India – both under colonial rule and after post-partition independence. He made a splash among Sri Lankan intellectuals and academics after his return to the island in 1961, and became the theoretician of the United Front politics during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Nation was the English chronicle of that politics, and it is there that Ajith Samaranayake, after leaving Trinity College, sharpened his writing tools before gaining national prominence. It so happened that it was after the funeral of Ajith Samaranayake that Vijaya Kumar apparently confirmed with Manik de Silva, his classmate at Royal College, that Kumar and I could start writing for the Sunday Island. Another interesting side to this is that Manik de Silva is also a nephew of Colvin R de Silva who was not only a frontline LSSP leader but also Sri Lanka’s greatest political rhetorician. Kumar has often blamed me that because of my alleged soft corner for Colvin, I have not been harsh enough in my criticisms of the 1972 constitution.

While I write my columns from Canada , I try to have my feet on the ground in Sri Lanka. I always meet up with Manik during my visits to Sri Lanka and often in the company of a sounding board of people that once included Kumar David and Diana Captain. Diana charmingly told me that she always likes my writing but doesn’t always agree with what I write. The usual regulars are NG (Tanky) Wickremeratne, Tissa Jayatileke, Chandini Tilakaratne, and occasionally Vijaya Kumar whenever he is in Colombo. Tanky even kept us in a room at the Orient Club until we exhaustively discussed a few of the more pressing problems facing Sri Lanka.

At a personal level I have benefited from the trove of insights offered by my sister-in-law Mano Alles, based on her vantage positions in the banking and financial circles. There is no politics without gossips and it is in the hands of the recipient to use them benevolently or malevolently. I have heard from AJ Wilson that NM Perera was known to be a lover of gossip during his salad days, at the LSE, in London. In my case, I am too much of an engineer to let slip personal stories into my narratives, except have them in background for internal validation. These are among the intangibles that make their way even in unseen ways into the making a column both in style and in substance.

Style and Substance

For style, I have benefited along the way from the kindness and learnedness of too many people. I owe my rudiments to my father and to my teachers at St. Anthony’s College, Kayts, and St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna. I have had my dangling participle corrected by Regi Siriwardena, with the nugget that Tolstoy too makes that error in the Russian. Just so you know, Regi knew his Russian, and a handful of other European languages, as well as he knew English. I never made the dangling mistake again, hopefully, and developed a keenness to look for it in the writing of others. Paul Capsersz red circled when I wrote ‘mentioned about’. Kumar would chide me early on as being too ‘effusive’ with my adjectives.

In Canada, I have been asked to use one sentence for no more than one idea. I heard from my daughter’s English teacher about the ‘range of sentences’ she was writing. She was 10 and I was 43, so I practised for a while – deliberately rewriting every other of my sentences to increase the range of them in a paragraph. Small sacrifice compared to Somerset Maugham, who was known for biting his thumb while searching for the fitting word, and not infrequently there was blood in his mouth before the word could arrive in his head.

Regi also used to tell us that we, Sri Lankans/South Asians, can be as good as anybody in expounding theories or writing commentaries in English, but the Achilles Heel of the second language is exposed when describing one’s personal experience or one’s observation of the physical surroundings and events. I have tried to overcome this shortcoming through my lived experience in Canada and interactions with those who write and speak with the license of the first language – more levity and freedom, and less caution and inhibition. I have also used my technical writing as an engineer and freelance writing as a columnist to be mutually informing and influencing.

Journalism as described in textbooks as a craft that marshals the attributes of creativity and enterprise, and is circumscribed by the pressure of deadline. Hence the coinage – deadline artists, in the 2018 HBO Documentary: Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists, dedicated to two of New York’s most celebrated tabloid journalists: Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. Deadline and procrastination could be two sides of the same persona coin. The British writer Douglas Adams who is known for the quote “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by,” was also notorious for his procrastination as much as he was famous for his sharp wit.

My experience in writing a Sunday column does not involve any running around to gather facts and stories and hurriedly mould them into a story to meet the deadline. Yet the flow of adrenalin is palpable even in the laid back writing of a weekly column. My weekly routine is to look for a theme from among developing stories and then gather the relevant facts and opinions on the selected topic to develop a coherent argument. There is always Trump if there is no other topic.

Particular topics may benefit from premeditated ideas and pre-assembled information which will render a column comprehensive and compelling. Oftentimes, what I think is a good piece may not be liked as such by many readers. At least a partial explanation might be found in what Roland Barthes, the French literary critic, argued in “The Death of the Author” – to give the primacy of interpretation as much to the inclination of the reader as it is given to the intention of the writer.

No one writes a column hoping to change the world solely by the power of writing, although writing can be consequential if there are objective conditions that can bring about a sizable fusion between the writer’s intentions and the readers’ interest. Professional journalism like any other profession is meant to serve a functional purpose and not theatrical goals. Historically, the print medium emerged in Europe, as the Fourth Estate in a country’s realm, to hold to account in the public interest, the powers of the state and of the religious authorities. Reporting news and writing columns and editorials are part of fulfilling the trust to ensure accountability. Journalism is an integral part of the checks and balances of a social system that includes the state and its institutions, the civil society and its organs, and the market system and the private engines of economic growth.

The print medium has also played another historic role in the evolution of national societies. “Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer,” wrote Hegel highlighting the dominant status of the print medium in the 18th and 19th centuries after its beginning in the 17th. Benedict Anderson used this quote to premise his path-breaking thesis that the two main outputs of the print medium – the novel and the newspaper – have been the principal catalysts of the making of modern nations. A third factor is the pilgrimage of state functionaries – the transfer and territorial circulation of state officials, carrying the banner of the nation-state to every corner of its territory.

Sinhala and Tamil literati can relate to the role of the two instruments in the shaping of the language-based political consciousness that emerged in their respective communities in the 20th century, overarching the hitherto caste and kinship based building blocks of their social structures. There was a third and thinly overarching layer provided by the English medium newspapers that linked the island’s three communities, the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims, and created what Hector Abhayavardhana memorably called “the first anticipation of a Ceylonese Nation.” Alas, the first anticipation was never given a constitutional chance until the 13th Amendment.

As the 21st century gathers momentum, the decline and fall of the print medium is also gathering increased momentum. But the medium is not disappearing totally, and the newspaper part of it has adapted itself to go online to reach readers either in print or in i cloud. But unlike in print where the newspapers enjoyed a certain monopoly of space, they have no such monopoly on the internet where it is primitive competition for commercial recognition. In the social medium, there is no requirement for pre-qualification before “putting pen to paper,” that was once sine qua-non in the print medium. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can write anything in the social medium for any other Tom, Dick and Harry.

There is also no deadline pressure in the social medium, as news can break out concurrently with the story itself, unlike with the print medium that stays frozen between deadlines. The social medium is both invitingly open and compellingly divisive. There is no longer any commanding opinion in print, as it used to be, which will capture and hold the interest of a large segment of the reading public. Instead, the social medium offers a buffet of choices from each according to his biases to satisfy each according to his urges.

As for the morning prayer, the i phone has replaced the newspaper as a 24/7 office of readings – akin to the daily ‘office’, prayer readings, of the catholic priest. But the i phone also includes the newspaper if you are inclined to read it among so many other buffet choices. And as for me, I will continue writing, and leave it to the reader to digest what I have written while pretending dead, à la Barthes, the French essayist and philosopher, until the next Sunday.

by Rajan Philips ✍️