Tuesday, January 29, 2013

As if Education is a plaything – a further Educational Services Ministry



The establishment of a new Educational Services Ministry with its own (I presume) Cabinet Minister, Duminda Dissanayake smacks of cronyism. After all he is the son of Bertie Premalal Dissanayake who has been so unceremonially  dropped from the NCP being its chief desecrator for such a long time and now in the wilderness! Was it payback time or just another insidious move to belittle the ministry by giving people with questionable abilities positions of power?

I have no clue what work if any will be assigned to this Ministry as it no doubt will clash with all the various and numerous ministers of education, who have led the education sector down a precipice which will take a long time to recover from.

The establishment of this new Ministry will I do not believe solve the inherent crisis in education except in providing a personal of questionable character to fight the students or the academics or the teachers. They are all now agitating for rights and the whole house of cards is in crisis, leaving the path open to the paying education sector to thrive further whilst the state sector is being killed by the very actions of this Government.

I am sure there is some method in the madness, but when we have more than 100 ministers in a govt. where with a few more they will command a majority in parliament. That would be an unprecedented step in the annals of governance in any country on earth, but will it improve the country at any level? I rather think not, but add to its destruction, and in this case to further eroding the standards of education, leading to the products that are even worse than today’s output.


I am not going to comment on the other new ministries including one for sugar. I will not criticize the sugar one as I am waiting for the said minister who has made a solemn pledge to make the country self sufficient in sugar production, keep his word. If he succeeds I will be the first person to congratulate him on that feat, and I will not hinder him in this process, as SL imports 90% of its sugar requirements at present at a great cost. I have no doubt that the cost of production of sugar will be higher than that of importing but I trust the local products do not have taxes and so I would hope that the prices will not rise relatively. I digress however from my original point which is my concern that education which is dear to my heart has been further bastardized, for want of another word, in this cavalier fashion, which reflects the step motherly treatment for an area that the Govt. wishes to suppress!

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