By Witness

I traveled to the Vanni on 17th September, with the hope of getting a lorry load of foodstuff from Vavuniya to Vanni, but it was impossible, as the Killinochchhi Government Agent’s convoy had been stopped at that time.

From Omanthai exit - entry point to Killinochchi, the situation was very different than when I had traveled in the previous months. There were no people on the road up to the Killinochchi hospital.

As I approached Murikandy I observed that everything was burnt and smashed. While I was passing this place last week, it was full of people and the place looked very busy, but now it has become a no man’s land. The people have vacated from there due to bombing and shelling and the shops were also destroyed. There was heavy traffic in the Killinochchi town, as people were crossing the A9 to Vattakachi and Tharampuram areas. Hospitals are full of injured people, including in the outer areas such as the veranda.

The Catholic priests who usually reside St. Theresa church and Caritas - Vanni in Killinochchi were about to leave from there with all their belongings. At night, the Killinochchhi town was in darkness as there was no electricity. All the shops were closed and some were packing available stocks to be taken away from Killinochchi.

The people now staying at Vattakachi and Tharmapuram areas are requesting to announce these areas as “safe zones” for the civilians. Food and shelter are desperately needed, as people are suffering without anything to eat and nowhere to rest. Aerial bombing, which is even amongst civilians, has created a situation of panic amongst the people.

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Siri Hettige
Professor of Sociology
University of Colombo

Education is recognized the world over as a means of achieving wider social and economic objectives. Modern education systems are designed in such a way as to facilitate the achievement of such wider objectives.  On the one hand, we provide  youngsters with a basic education that enables them to fit into a society that is based on modern ideas and values so that they eventually become active citizens of a modern state. It is also in the context of general education that some of the traditional divisions in society are relegated to the background making it possible for young members of society to forge bonds that transcend their primordial identities.

On the other hand, education is also widely accepted in modern societies as a means of imparting knowledge and skills that are vital for social and economic development. Such knowledge and skills can range from very basic social skills to sophisticated scientific knowledge needed to address complex problems at different levels in diverse spheres.

In order for the education system to play the two vital functions mentioned above, education planners and policy makers have to develop and manage educational institutions on a rational basis. In other words, they have to ask the question whether our institutions are operating in such a way as to help us to achieve these objectives. This question pertains to both the education system as a whole as well as to its constituent parts at different levels.

When the education system does not function in a desirable manner it gives rise to various problems that have implications beyond the education system. This does not mean that the problems emanating from the education system can be dealt within the confines of the education system itself. 

When we examine the country’s education system today, it is doubtful whether it fulfills the expectations in many of the areas mentioned earlier. The dominant tendency within the system continues to be to provide educational certificates to youth. Overwhelming pre-occupation is with examinations at the expense of skill development and citizenship education.

The result is that many students continue to move up the educational ladder without necessarily acquiring the diverse skills mentioned above. For instance, the ability to use a language in an effective manner is not always found among those who have reached higher levels of educational attainment.

It is also common knowledge that many educated youth do not have much needed social skills. These skills are required in our daily lives whether at a work place or in a community setting or even in a household.  Inter-personal communication, leadership and negotiating skills, public relations, decision making skills etc. come to our mind in this regard. There are also more specific skills that are needed in many work situations.

Even a manual labourer working in the construction sector can benefit from the kind of training he or she has received from a general education, provided that the school system is equipped with the resources needed to provide the desired skills.  

As regard citizenship, general education system should provide opportunities for children and youth to interact, exchange ideas and learn about each other across primordial divisions of caste, religion and ethnicity. On the other hand, this could happen only when there is a common language of communication. Many people used English as a link language in the past. Those who were upwardly mobile then had to learn English in order to get into newly established bureaucracies and modern professions such as law and medicine.

The repeal of English as the official language and the introduction of swabhasha education in schools and universities after independence resulted in a gradual abandoning of English as a second language. As a result, most of the educated youth in the country became monolingual. This was particularly so at lower levels of the social hierarchy where children had no opportunities to learn English outside the education system. The general education system became segregated on ethno-linguistic lines. This situation prevented children and youth belonging to different ethno-linguistic communities from interacting across community boundaries. While they continued to form their own separate identities, little or no opportunities were available for inter-cultural learning and the formation of a broader national identity, a pre-condition for national integration. The country’s ethnic problem has become almost intractable at least partly due to the wide gap between ethnic communities created by the language barrier.

Swabasha education was introduced with good intentions. Learning in the mother tongue was widely accepted as the most desirable option for children in the formative years. Learning in a foreign language can lead to alienation of children from their own culture, society and history. Yet, the educationists at the time felt that it was necessary to translate material available in other languages into local languages. Hence, the decision to establish the Educational Publications Department under the Ministry of Education.

Though some important publications were translated into local languages in the initial years, not more than a fraction of the vast body of literature became available in local languages. The situation has become worse in recent years due to the fact that the translation of books into Sinhala and Tamil became almost impossible for want of competent translators and financial resources. Today, most of the books available in our university libraries are in English but most of our students can hardly read them!

If the students cannot read the books available in the libraries, how can they acquire new knowledge? The inability to use a second language is a major handicap for most students in schools as well as in the universities. The knowledge of a second language among the country’s youth is so low that even many English teachers are not competent to teach the language. Unable to read original texts, most students are almost totally dependent on rote learning and a few publications available in local languages. How can such students excel in their studies and reach a high level of academic achievement?

We are living at a time when economic and social development in the country demands highly competent professionals and skilled human resources. The fast expanding service industries and technology based production requires people with the ability to learn new skills rapidly. Access to information and knowledge available on the internet depends largely on language skills. Have we been able to equip our younger generation with such language skills? In spite of repeated appeals, I made to authorities, to address this issue without further delay, our leaders and educational authorities continue to be silent on the issue. While it is urgent to develop and implement an effective national action plan with the support of donors and others, the authorities seem to be preoccupied with trivial procedural issues like school admissions and distribution of computers to schools, both of which can he easily delegated to officials in the ministry.  

People in this country remember some of the past leaders who had a vision and the capacity to address critical issues. Others have just come and gone. The country’s education system is beset with a number of serious structural problems. The language issue is one. Another is the ‘persisting diploma disease’ that prevents children from acquiring much needed skills and basic competencies.

These problems have far reaching consequences beyond the education system. It is unfortunate that we do not have leaders in the country who are capable of comprehending the complexity of the issues and the need to resolve them in a reasonable manner, within a reasonable period of time.  

This submission is from Groundview, an independent publication by CHA on humanitarian issues and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka.

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In the past week, the name ‘Sakvithi’ has been causing ripples in Sri Lankan society and creating numerous news headlines — for all the wrong reasons.

Sakvithi Ranasinghe, a populist tutor of English turned millionaire businessman, has fled the country after duping thousands of unsuspecting people to deposit their life’s savings in his investment firm. Media reports have variously placed the number of victims between 1,500 and 4,000 — and some estimates place the total worth of his loot to be a whopping Rs. Nine billion (over USD 83.5 million).

Since it broke around September 21, the scandal has consumed a good deal of newspaper space and broadcast time. Editorialists and TV pundits have been having a field day, some simply unable to resist the temptation to say ‘I told you so!’. One editorial reminded us that Sakvithi means king of kings — and asked if we should call this racketeer the king of conmen or Con King?

He might as well have used the name Sucker-vithi, or the king of suckers. The unfolding scenario is indeed disastrous for the victims, but they must share part of the responsibility for their current tragedy. The media coverage shows them to be grown up people, all indications are that they voluntarily parted with their money in return for interest rates as high as 72 per cent per year - several times what reputed commercial banks offer. Is this another case of people suspending their common sense in pursuit of quick and easy money?

The finger pointing, fist waving and name calling will continue for some more weeks and then, in typical Sri Lankan style, the incident would be forgotten by all except those directly affected. And we can be certain this won’t be the last scam of its kind, notwithstanding the noises now being made by the regulator — Central Bank of Sri Lanka — cautioning the public and threatening action against other operators of illegal deposit schemes.

Television as great authenticator
A vigilant regulator is useful, but woefully insufficient, to guard against future scams of this or other kinds. Police investigations and prosecution need to follow. And in our media-saturated times, I see at least two other key requirements: greater vigilance by the media, and higher levels of media literacy in everyone.

Our media have played more than a reporter role in the Sakvithi saga. I was intrigued to read, buried amidst the news coverage, one victim saying she was led to trust the fraudster after seeing an advertisement on television. “I invested Rs. 2 million of my money after seeing him on TV. I basically believe what I see on the TV and so was misled,” she lamented.

Hers is not an isolated case. Not everyone heeds the common sense advice, ‘Don’t believe everything you hear in the media’. Indeed, the Sakvithi scandal once again brings into sharp focus the media’s — especially television’s — perceived role as the great authenticator of our times.

For several years, Sakvithi ran English teaching programmes on Sri Lanka’s national television and other channels. We can only presume these were treated as commercial programmes, for airing of which the stations would have sold their airtime. (Extracts can be still be watched at the online video sharing platform YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/hodawada2007).

On the guise of teaching English to the nation’s youth, Sakvithi carefully manufactured a larger than life image for himself. He also ran regular newspaper advertisements in the highest circulating weekend Sinhala newspapers. Some were in full colour, occupying an entire broadsheet page. These too reinforced his image as a benevolent, enterprising young Sinhala businessman doing social good.

Broadcast airtime and newspaper space don’t come cheap. Over the years and across the media spectrum, Sakvithi’s custom must have generated tens of millions to both state-owned and privately owned media organisations.

Pied piper of Nugegoda
I find it more than a tad ironic that the same media outlets are now peddling the tales of woe of the thousands of men and women tricked by their former, big-time customer. Knowingly or otherwise, these media have amplified the mesmerising tune of this pied piper of Nugegoda who lulled thousands into parting with their money.

Their journalists would no doubt protest innocence, reminding us of the divide between editorial and advertising operations. And they are right: media practitioners and editorial gatekeepers don’t have much (or any) control over what fills up the commercially sold advertising space. But how many of their readers or viewers can distinguish the difference?

Most people experience media products as a whole, and lack even the basic media literacy to separate news, commentary and paid commercials. Besides, with the rise of ‘advertorials’ — product promotions neatly dressed up as editorial content — it’s becoming harder to discern which is which.

To be fair, the business sector is not alone in manipulating the media or taking advantage of our society’s widespread media illiteracy. Most of our politicians and ultra-nationalists, as well as some artistes and religious personalities have been doing this for years, with considerable success.

Consider these prime examples:

• Our elections have turned into media-driven carnivals where voters are being tricked or lulled into electing the biggest image-builders, irrespective of other credentials (or the lack of it).
• Our greatest national tragedy — the bloody North East war — is being waged both on the ground and in the media, with truth becoming an early casualty.
• The state owned media organisations are being prostituted shamelessly for every ruling party’s propaganda, with scant regard for accuracy, balance and credibility.

Scoundrels like Sakvithi are not born; they are nurtured and cheered in lands like ours where assorted politicians, generals and priests manipulate the media every day for their narrow personal agendas. A land where impunity reigns, corruption is stinking to high heaven and the rule of law is routinely sidelined for political or commercial expedience can breed not one but hundreds of Sakvithis.

Journalistic vigilance
In these calamitous times, even journalistic vigilance has limited utility. For example, while most sections of the media industry were happily pocketing Sakvithi’s advertising revenue, the independent Ravaya newspaper exposed him on 27 July 2008. But that expose triggered no criminal investigation, and Sakvithi carried on for a few weeks more. The rest of the media pack woke up to the story only after the man fled the country in mid September.

Journalists become disheartened or restrained when the most common response to media investigations is to literally shoot the messenger — or question the messengers’ racial pedigree or political leanings. For example, when the multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes were first exposed several years ago, it took weeks and months of media pressure before official investigations were launched. By then, much damage was done.

More than a century and half ago, Abraham Lincoln cautioned: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Old Abe is still right, but with more gullible people around these days, just fooling some people for a short while is quite sufficient. The hoodwinkers then laugh all the way to their banks or elected offices (or both).

Confidence tricksters are increasingly media savvy, liberally buying media space/time to build invincible images. To safeguard against this, we must keep strengthening the truly independent media while improving everyone’s media literacy.

Nalaka Gunawardene blogs on media, society and culture at http://movingimages.wordpress.com

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People don’t realize that there is as much corruption in the private education sector as in the public sector for the corrupt counter party that offers the bribe or corrupt payment is in the private sector.

There is corruption in all its forms- favoritism, nepotism, bribery and influence peddling in the education sector, which is now taking first place in the Corruption Ranking.

Corruption occurs among many groups of actors from policy makers at the government level to providers of education at the school level, such as teachers and principals. Corrupt practices in the educational sphere can include bribes, illegal fees for admissions and examinations, examination frauds, preferential promotions and placements for teachers and charging students for ‘tutoring services’ to cover the curriculum needed to pass mandatory examinations and that should have been taught in the classroom. Illegal practices in textbook procurement, meal provision, and infrastructure contracting and so on are other malpractices.

Educationists point out those students who are educated in corrupt systems may not learn the skills needed to take advantage of available opportunities and to contribute to economic and social development. A third impact could be added to this list: corruption’s impact on core values and ethics during the formative years of young people’s lives. Corruption in education may undermine an entire generation’s core values regarding accountability, personal responsibility, and integrity as seems to have been done since the take-over of denominational schools in the early 1960s. Corruption may also affect learning outcomes. Countries with higher levels of corruption tend to have higher dropout rates. In fact, dropout rates in countries with low corruption and highly efficient government services are 26 percentage points lower than dropout rates in countries with high corruption and low efficiency according to studies carried out by educationists.

But can we be complacent that all is well with our schools. Not if one listens to parents. There have been complaints in the press against our premier girls’ school in Colombo. Teachers in this girls school in Colombo 7 discriminate against the cleverer children because they are influenced by the parents of children who are not so bright but wish to obtain high positions in the class. One such case came to my notice just two weeks ago. The parents protested to the Principal but she has done nothing about it and the parents are now getting ready to remove the child to an International School. Incidentally the girl’s father is a Buddhist. although this was not the cause for the discrimination but rather pure corruption.  Previously a Deputy Prefect was chosen as a result of influence peddling by an old nun who is her aunt. Shame on these nuns. Unlike the foreign nuns who were pressurized to leave by our local nuns, these local nuns have no respect for fair play or even the human rights of their children. No wonder there was so much agitation against Catholic schools. The principals of such Catholic schools are a law unto themselves. They take orders from no one not even from the Bishop. The ancient Romans chose a dictator from their Consuls but made sure that the dictator was  at least capable. Not so our religious orders running the Catholic schools who lack the basic ethical values they take vows to practice.

The way to minimize corruption is to put in place checks & balances to exercising discretion whether by teachers or principals. Transparent decision making, and effective monitoring and evaluation to ensure accountability on the part of every teacher or principal are needed.  Relationships that could result in an unequal power balance between the service provider (the school and its relevant authority) and the beneficiaries must have monitoring mechanisms. In our school structure the principal is all powerful and is either not accountable to any superior or such accountability is weak and not enforced due to the failures on the part of the Superiors.

Poor relationships could be exacerbated by a weak contact between beneficiaries (students and their parents) and the principal and teachers, with the former -the parents having inadequate means to voice concerns where there is gross abuse of power or corruption by teachers or principals. The Christian -non Catholic schools have in place a Board of Governors for each school drawn from parents and past students. This acts as a check on the principal and the teachers who could be held accountable. This is the structure of organization in the corporate sector. Are we still following the traditions of the imperial Roman Empire despite the development of democracy? It is the lack of accountability that contributes to corrupt practices in its various forms.

 

A Code of Ethics for Teachers is absolutely essential
Such codes of conduct for teachers must set out clear parameters for professional behavior. Teachers must be seen as a crucial factor in promoting quality education. Teachers are the transmitters of knowledge who help ensure that children learn. They are role models to students, and in most rural communities, they must be the most educated and respected personages. They are at the front line of developing pupils’ understanding, attitudes, skills, learning, and core values. Teachers are, therefore, the most important element in producing quality education.

Influence peddling and cheating, such as marking down pupils in order to favor other pupils, allowing influence peddling in the selection of Prefects are pernicious practices which seem to be all too common in our schools. In an influential study, Jacob and Levitt (2003) concluded that cheating occurs in 3 to 5 percent of elementary school classrooms each year in the Chicago Public Schools.  Closer oversight of schools by parents could help curb corrupt practices and is possible in most cases under existing regulations.

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