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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