An awakening: Revisiting education policy after Cyclone Ditwah

In the short span of two or three days, Cyclone Ditwah, has caused a disaster of unprecedented proportions in our midst.

- BY SIVAMOHAN SUMATHY

One of the schools flooded during the recent disasters. (Image courtesy Sri Lanka Navy) being rolled out, when heavy expenses will likely be incurred. In the aftermath of the disaster, but this becomes more urgent than ever.

(Sri Lanka Navy)

Lashing away at almost the entirety of the country, it has broken through the ramparts of centuries old structures and eroded into areas, once considered safe and secure.The rains may have passed us by. The waters will recede, shops will reopen, water will be in our taps, and we can resume the daily grind of life. But it will not be the same anymore; it should not be. It should not be business as usual for any of us, nor for the government. Within the past few years, Sri Lankan communities have found themselves in the middle of a crisis after crisis, both natural and man-made, but always made acute by the myopic policies of successive governments, and fuelled by the deeply hierarchical, gendered and ethnicised divides that exist within our societies. The need of the hour for the government today is to reassess its policies and rethink the directions the country, as a whole, has been pushed into.

Neoliberal disaster