The Education Mess and the call for the Ministers to Resign!

The Editorial in Today’s Daily Mirror (1^st Sept.2012) is a call for all the Education Ministers to resign and for the President to take action against them. This is for the continuing saga, which includes the Z score fiasco, the problems in the recently completed A level exams and the possibility of a long delay in the marking of the papers and also a potential problem in the way they will be marked to say nothing of the Grade 5 scholarship exam where questions had been leaked, the University Teachers action, and a complete breakdown in the Education sector, where no one appears to have any faith in the Free Education system in Sri Lanka, so widely touted as the best in the East but only at home!

Suffice to say the said Ministers have blamed every problem on incompetent bureaucrats who have been tasked with the management. In the end the Ministers are responsible for their departments and politicization of the administrative service where less qualified people do the tasks is ultimately the responsibility of the Government. In other countries where there is an issue such as any of the above, the minister responsible usually submits his resignation, taking full responsibility even though the fault was with a bureaucrat within his department.

It is unlikely in Sri Lanka’s present climate there will be such a mea culpa and after many such instances, the President does not appear to have removed any responsible people from the failings of his administration. I presume that is because he owes all these people favors! for his staying in power, and do not want them to undermine him with some of the harsh truths of the administration if they are out of a job!

It is important that there is accountability and more importantly a complete overhaul of the education establishment, which I have continuously been advocating in this blog.

The 1000 national schools and 5000 primary schools program are mere figments of the Govt.’s imagination as I have been to some of these earmarked schools and no funding or promise of funding to reach these levels are forthcoming, mere rhetoric I presume, waiting for the World Bank to come up with the dough.

It is time for a new vision in Education due to Globalization, and human migration to places with opportunities, so let’s get started to meet this. The challenges to Education that Globalization offers, is not even considered by the government in a holistic way. 

Each human is a person with a goal, that goal is within a World and not just a Nation. We cannot confine aspirations to Sri Lanka as it has patently failed, especially our youth. If you want proof, just advertise for people to join a boat to 'nowhere', and half the young people between 20 and 30 will want to be on it. So please no apologies for the mess, we must find a practical solution for people with aspirations and desires who have different ideas to the educators and the legislators.