A friend in the education ministry told me a story last week. In Sri Lanka there's a village call "Atakalampanna”. There is a small school in this small village. Some time back there was an art teacher in this school. He was very talented. In the first year he was appointed to a school in this village, six students from this school received medals from Shankar international art competition. Second year also they received six medals. This news was published in a very tiny invisible slot of a news paper. So in the second year, principal of this school wrote a letter to one of the education directors. Principal mentioned in his letter that their students are very talented and emerged this much of awards. But there wasn't any place in the school to keep at least the awards. So he requested the education director that, if this school gets a building for the students to study, that will be a great help. Now you must be thinking education director might not have replied as usually what could happen in Sri Lanka. No actually he did reply. Can you imagine what the education director's reply was? Just imagine. He replied saying "Please bring all the medals to the education office. There's enough space to keep the awards. No need for a building". Not only that. He transferred that art master in to Ananda College. (I have nothing against Ananda College. Glad they got a good teacher). In the first year after he joined Ananda College, two students from Ananda College won Shankar competition. But news papers gave them half a page publicity compared to the small place they gave to that small school. This art teacher is the one who later become the very famous art teacher of Ananda College. Please don't misunderstand me. This article is not about that art teacher. I'm happy he got a better place with better facilities. Happy for him and I do respect his talent and service. This is about some thing else. When I heard this, for a moment I felt the tragedy of the education system in this country.
In the papers last week I saw one of our famous ministers has made a comment that there are 48,000 graduates in the public sector and 25,000 are idling without having any work to do. What an unfortunate country? Where is the fault? Normally in private sector, they hire people only if there's a vacancy. Most of the top businesses have a career plan for their staff. They invest on their staff expecting to capitalize on their talent. Why these governments don't have such plans? I know one of the ministries submit a paper saying they need 60 odd graduates. They got 600 graduates. What can they do with this extra staff? Ministers can argue that they have to give jobs to people, otherwise people will die from hunger. But just pump graduates in to anywhere will not solve the problem. They will eventually hate this society after all.
But why does graduates have to go behind politicians and beg for a job? They are the so called most brainy people in this country. Who make these students in to such low level situation? Well in Sri Lanka the cream of this country is selected to universities from one of the most competitive exams in the world. Then what happen to these intelligent students? They have to go through very hard time. It starts with ragging welcome. Then for 4 years they have to be in the campus. Some universities don't allow their students to do a job and earn money or get some experience during that period. Because of this, university students has happen to print book marks, papers and go around buses and every where and beg money for their studies from people who didn't even pass their O/Ls . How sad? Our universities still stick to their old believes. They don't like students doing any other exams too. Because some of these lecturers do not have any qualification more than their first degree. They do not specialize on teaching or they neither do much research. So they never allow their students also to exceed them. In some famous universities in the world, only having a 1st class degree is not a qualification to teach. If you are really good in teaching, if you have far superior knowledge, you can teach even without a degree.
Does what we teach in our universities match for today? Can their graduates compete with other similar students who are professionally qualified with various other exams? (Some of course are very much better I do agree.) I feel our politicians and other policy makers bring these students to universities and then humiliate them. I feel they betray the students to take the revenge that they couldn't go to university. Do they really do any skill development? One of my mates who are qualified from University of Moratuwa told me that none of their graduates are unemployed up to now. I don't know how true that it. But if it is the case that is something a university can be really proud about them selves. How many universities in this country can give such a guarantee?
In other hand students also should know that a university is not a place which gives jobs. Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you have a job. Students should be intelligent enough to understand the tragedy they are in. Some students just spent their 4 years of life in the university doing strikes and ragging (please read the book "Giniralla Conspiracy by Nihal De Silva”) and all sorts of foolish work without taking any effort to develop their skills. They always complained that they do not know English. But as students who have a very high brain capacity, if they really want, they could learn English very well. May be better than the English speaking community in this country. They could assess them selves as to whether they are competent. If they are to stand superior to others, I think their degree certificate is not enough. They should grab skills. They should know about the world around. I think more than all, they have to develop their attitudes. Otherwise they could not market them selves and they will never get a chance to show their abilities to the world.
Another thing is I guess if we can categories the universities in this country as to different sections we can reduce the number of unemployed graduates. I think they have to have some universities to develop skills. Some for only academic and research purposes. Some for job oriented degrees. I don't know how the university system works in other countries. But I feel there is something terribly wrong with some of our universities and our systems and the mind set of our people.
In an interview at TV one of the spokes man said that even at a crisis situation, our garment sector develops. That’s because there are skilled labor in that industry to cater the demand at a world class level. But our IT sector does not develop even at good times, because we do not have enough IT professionals to serve. When are we going to fill this gap? Is the education in country is for the glorification of the politicians and foolish education officers who make these policies? Does the exams of this country focus on testing knowledge or failing students? Only less than 1% of the students go to a university in this country. Just look around. Just think. Is there anything we could do to change this?
People often ask me whether I'm a socialist, do I hate this country, why I always blame some one and various similar questions. No I'm not. I'm a very neutral ordinary citizen. I love this country. If we all try, we could make it a really nice place. What ever it is love to live in this country.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Need graduates who can perform
Posted by Fly ball at 11:03 PM
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3 comments:
A friend of mine made an interesting comment about the education system in SL. He observed that the objective is not to 'teach' or develop analytical skills but to weed out those who 'aren't good enough' based on some very narrow criteria. That's not what education is about, all of us have unique skills. Education is about brining that out somehow, whether it is in IT, Photography, Carpentry or whatever.
Also the lack of English is shackling, I can come back to SL tommorow and get a job without an issue in the private sector while SL graduates suffer because they can't tie into the global economy. Bottom line nationalists are idiots.
Reading your article made me very sad. Our children in Kantale experience the same problem too. Lack of good teachers. Most of them failed english at the O'level as they did not have an english teacher. People in the education ministry should have encouraged that teacher to stay on in the rurual areas rather than transfer him to a Colombo school. A while back I remember reading in the press that some organisation had received lots of cricket equipment to be distributed amobst schools and when I read the list of schools it was amazing as they were ALL colombo schools. We are a small charity that helps educate children in Kantale and we endeavour to improve the schools so that more children can benefit, but with a lack of good teachers the children suffer and ultimately the community and society suffer the repercussions of a failed education system
1 thing Ive noticed about a lot of graduates, is that they wait for someone else (Usually the Government) to give them opportunities (which usually means jobs) when with their education they could make a very good place for themselves with a little creativity and drive. There are so many successful entrepreneurs out there that never got the chance for that kind of education, and so many graduates are throwing it away.
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