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Free education was the dream of one pioneering leader who was defeated in the first general election of independent Sri Lanka. He fought an invisible alliance of the left and the right represented by leaders who belonged to a privileged club. The common denominator that united them was that they spoke English and were the manor born. It was a time when politics was the preserve of the privileged. They thought that free education would erode their hold on power which the departing British were happy to leave in their reliable hands. One man thought otherwise. He alone realized that children constituted the only renewable resource a nation would possess. Dr.C.W.W. Kananagara the father of free education built 54 Central Coleges throughout the country in the period 1943-1947. The central college concept ended with his defeat.
Dr. C. W. W. Kannagara, popularly known as the father of free education, was born as a saviour, for the emancipation of the neglected and down-trodden masses of this country. At the time of his birth, the public education system in this country was a monopoly of the Christian Missionaries, under the patronage of the Colonial Government. Although the people of Sri Lanka were heirs to a well established educational heritage, well known in the whole of Asia and even beyond, it had deteriorated to a pathetic state due to subsequent foreign invasions, and by the time of the late 19th century, the indigenous education system had been confined to some temple schools and a few Pirivenas which played a somewhat limited role catering to the religious, ayurvedic and astrological needs of the people.
On May 30, 1944 Dr. C.W.W. Kananagara as the Minister of Education presented the motion EDUCATION:REFORM OF THE SYSTEM that was eventually passed by the then State Council amidst severe reservations among some of the leaders belonging to the privileged classes who saw in this legislation the seeds of a social revolution that was yet to come. However, it is noteworthy that he was fully supported by Tamil leaders such as C.Sunteralingam , V.Naslliah and Moslem leaders like T.B.Jayah. In the reforms adopted introducing free education, the medium of instruction in schools was spelt out as follows.
1.The medium of instruction in the primary school shall be the mother tongue, but English shall be a compulsory second language.
2. The medium of instruction of the lower department of the post primary schools may be either the mother tongue or bi-lingual.
3. The medium of instruction in the higher department of the post primary schools may be English, Sinhalese, Tamil or bi-lingual.
(see box under from the Hansard of the State Council-Control of Education) . .
1947 Debacle
After Kannangara was defeated at the 1947 election by vested interests, Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake appointed E. A. Nugawela as the Minister of Education, although A. Ratnayake (who right through out stood by Kannangara in his struggle for educational reforms) expressed his wish to be appointed as Minister of Education. Ironically one of the leading central colleges – the Nugawela Central College was in his constituency. There in lies another tale.
D S Senanayake in his endeavour to undo what Kannangara had done for education, got down Dr. H. W. House from Gibraltar ( which had a population of only 21,000 and a school population of 2,650 ). Dr. Howes replaced Walwin A. de Silva a brilliant member of the then Civil Service as Director and the latter retired in disgust. It was C. Sundaralingam who vehemently criticised the attempt to import an outsider to man our education. He said, “ There are problems which face this country but which most countries in the West do not face, such as the question of the national languages. Now for instance, how many outsiders have heard the word ‘Swabhasha’ ? Here is this most important problem of the place of 3 languages in the curriculum of our schools. Can a man who has had no knowledge, no experience, personal or otherwise, do anything to solve this problem?
“ Then, another case is the question of culture. The fact of the matter is that we do not want any more importation of alien talent into our education. We want our own men, our own specialists, versed in the educational system in the country to be able to tackle our problems in our own way. It is better that we should make mistakes and learn ourselves rather than that others should make mistakes for us and go away. ” (1949 Hansard, Vol. VI ) Sundaralingam was also one person who right through out backed Kannangara in his struggle for Educational reforms.
When going through the debates in the state Council, one can definitely see that there was no communal tinge or shades in the deliberations of the Legislative Council or State Council. It was the power – hungry politicians who messed up the politics of the country and created the dissension that was to torment this island in later years.
In order to lay the ground work for his reforms Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara took the following steps…
- Free Education for all, irrespective of caste, creed and wealth (and also age) so that children of all classes could gain knowledge in school to become useful citizens of the country.
- His education system evolved from the Rural Schools he experimented with Handessa in the 1930s and which were considered as a useful experiment in education in the whole of Asia.
- He established 54 Central Schools covering all the electorates at the time and equipped them with good and efficient Principals and teachers, hostels for scholars, laboratories, workshops, playgrounds, etc., which were then confined to the Christian Missionary Schools and a few Buddhist denominational schools.
- He handpicked efficient and straightforward teachers to man these schools and gave them every encouragement to develop them, keeping a close eye on them. It was unfortunate that subsequently, such good Principals were promoted to be Directors of Education without grooming successors to take over. Such good and efficient Principals should have been kept in the schools, giving them the necessary perks in the school itself. We, representing the Central Colleges Past Pupils’ Association of Sri Lanka, brought this matter up with the National Education Commission in 1992. We brought to the notice of the Commission the dearth of good and efficient Principals to man the schools and requested the Commission to take suitable measures to train a cadre Principals to take over from those who retire but so far nothing tangible has happened.
Dr Kannangara brought the estate schools to main stream education and looked after the estate children as well, which in fact won him the votes of the estate workers in Mathugama in 1947, whereas, in other electorates they voted against the UNP.
He introduced subjects like science, agriculture, woodwork, pottery, leatherwork, music and dancing, book binding, etc., into the school curriculum so that children, after leaving school, could be gainfully employed and even established Resident Training Colleges to train the required teachers for the various subjects up to senior level. These are non existent today.
However, the elite class headed by Mr. D.S. Senanayake conspired to defeat him in the 1947 election, and thereafter, did everything they could to obstruct and retard the Education Reforms that CWWK had very thoughtfully introduced in 1945.
This was done successfully and now we reap the benefits in the form of communal and economic problems that we are facing today.
What ails the education system today
Education administrators, guided by politicians without a vision, carried out a number of operations in the body of education from time to time, thereby bringing forth the predicament that education has come to today. Some of the ill conceived reforms carried out can be enumerated as follows :
In the early 1950s, there were 3 compulsory subjects for the Senior Level Examination, namely, First Language (mother tongue), Second Language (English/ Pali/ Sanskrit/ Tamil etc.) and Arithmetic or Mathematics.
Subsequently, these were reduced to 2 subjects, namely, the First Language and Arithmetic/,Mathematics. Sinhalese Language and Literature (also Tamil Language and Literature) which were treated as 2 subjects were made in to one, making the students neither proficient in language nor in literature. This has resulted in the decline of the Sinhala/ Tamil language even among the University Professors and Lecturers, leave alone teachers.
With the introduction of the Provincial Councils education became a devolved subject coming within their purview. However, successive governments established another set of schools called National Schools administered by the line Ministry, without establishing adequate machinery to administer them. Due to this remote control system, most of the National Schools (including most Central Schools) are being neglected and today some of them have no discipline
There is no transfer system for Principals and teachers in both National schools and Provincial schools. Even if a Principal is found to be inefficient and corrupt, he cannot be replaced or transferred due to stringent procedures. If a Provincial school teacher wants a transfer to a national school, he has to go through 14 steps.
In the days gone by, there were Boards of Survey carried out annually in every school and Administration, Finance, Inventories, methods of teaching, results at Public Exams, Sports, Environment etc. were all checked by a competent team from the Education Department.
As far as I am aware, this vital aspect of education administration has been neglected where the Principal of a school can be changed 4 times during a period of nearly 30 years, without the Boards of Survey being held.
The Navodaya Scholarship system which replaced the 5th Standard Scholarship Examination introduced by C W W K, has created a system of so-called Popular Schools, thereby uprooting the village children from their cultural environment and exposing them to a cosmopolitan culture. This ran counter to the Kannangara system which brought up children in their traditional environment. His vision was to develop decentralized centres of higher learning, spread through out the country.
The Tuition system, which has now become the canker in the whole education system, has come into being from the time the school curriculum and syllabuses were revised, leaving a gap between the O/ L syllabus and A/ L syllabus, bringing forth a set of tuition masters, who came in to fill in the gap, without which children could not follow A/ L classes. In our days, there was a continuity in the syllabuses from 6th Standard up to University level.
International Schools
Education, which was considered a sacred subject from time immemorial, has now become a profitable venture as a result of the neglect of the English language in the normal Govt. schools. (Closing down of the English Training colleges has led to this situation in a large way.
The Vidhya Peethas, I feel, have not been able to fill that gap.) The overemphasis placed on the English medium by Politicians and Administrators, who had their children educated abroad, also led to the mushrooming of these International schools.
The elite class (including drug barons, uneducated Mudalalis and underworld kingpins) send their children to international schools, spending several millions of illicitly earned money, with the aim of making their children achieve what they themselves could not. These schools, registered under the Company Ordinance or as B O I Projects, bring up children in an atmosphere of an alien culture, imparting knowledge in subjects relevant to the British Education system, much against the vision of Dr. C.W.W. Kannagara and against the existing Law of the Island pertaining to education.
The underlying vision of these International schools was well manifested when reading a news item that appeared in the Daily News of Feb. 8, under the heading “ 53 Lankan teens for 2007 Future Leaders Summit. ” According to this news release, of the 53 students selected to represent Sri Lanka at this Future Leaders summit to be held in Washington D.C., 50 are from International schools and only 3 from National schools (1 from Nalanda and 2 from Royal). It is pertinent to question the basis and criteria on which these students were selected. The release further says that these students are sponsored by their parents. This means that only those who can afford to bear the expenses can send their children to the Future Leaders Summit. This also means that students attending national schools have no chance of attending future leaders Summit. ( Poor folks have no chance of becoming future leaders in the country of their birth ! )
Since independence, Sri Lanka has undergone 3 Youth uprisings, namely, J V P uprisings of 1971 and 1989 and the Tamil Youth uprising. If the Kannangara Education system had been implemented in its entirety and in its true form, I feel that such situations would never have arisen. If Kannangara’s vision had been followed, the language problem, which was a precursor to the ethnic problem, would not have arisen.
The Youth Commission appointed in the 1990s to study the background to the youth uprisings and make suitable recommendations to avoid such uprisings in the future, had recommended the appointment of a National Education Commission to draft a National Education Policy , which may not be changed with the change of Governments, change of Ministers and change of Secretaries.
This Commission, I feel, has miserably failed to address the real issues and advise the Governments on a prudent Education Policy, may be due to their failure to take independent decisions, without being dictated by the powers that be. Some times, the Commission has become a dumping ground for political rejects at elections.
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