Educational reforms meaningless unless learning culture is inculcated

Unceasing educational reform activities

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SRI Lankans have been offered once again an opportunity to savour another set of proposals for education reforms and live in hopes of having an education system comparable to those prevailing in countries like Singapore, Finland or Norway.

The proposals prepared by a team of experts attached to the National Institute of Education or NIE have been presented in the form of a PowerPoint presentation by the Ministry of Education, Higher Education, and Vocational Development.! Education reforms have been so important to the Government that the President himself chose to explain it to Parliamentarians when some groups began to critique it.²

He emphasised on the need for a wide education reforms given the general dissatisfaction among the citizens about the prevailing education systems. He said that it is not merely a reform of curriculum but a wide scheme to develop the human capital resource base of the country, a very important factor needed for the country to advance its developmental momentum. But the proposal presented to Parliamentarians covering upgrading of curriculum and assessment system in school education was far from these wide goals.

Sri Lanka has attempted at reforming its education system in the last eight decades beginning from the C.W.W. Kannangara reforms in 1943 which paved the way for the establishment of central colleges in selected areas and non-fee levying education, misidentified as free education, in the country.³ Since the non-fee levying education system at the school and undergraduate levels is funded by citizens through general taxation which they pay now and borrowing funds for which they pay later, it is community financed and not free education as commonly believed. If the community chooses not to finance it one day, the so-called free education collapses on itself. However, this system remains in force and is considered nonnegotiable by students, teachers, academics, and other stakeholders.