Friday, April 20, 2018

Education Quandary of successful parents from underprivileged backgrounds


An Education Quandary – 

An observation of what happens when gifted parents who have made good from  rural/underprivileged settings, want/give what is best for their children

I have had many instances in my experience in meeting parents who one would consider to be the success stories of our free education system, where they have gone to rural schools, some born to poor parents, but somehow through their hard work, either progressed to the State University System, or managed to get ahead in life through other efforts like taking advantage of Fee based tertiary education, where they were able to fund themselves and achieve their goals.

They then become the financially successful people, from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. So what do they wish for their children?

The people who made good, even Ministry Secretaries, Government Agents, Doctors, Small Businessmen, I refer to as PRORUBACK parents, who I have met, have sent their children to private, international schools and some have been able to fund their children in foreign universities to. This next generation I will refer to as PRORUBACK kids.

There is an identity crisis, where they forsake their parents backgrounds as they have simply left it far behind, not having being exposed to the hardships that brought their parents to afford the education and benefits they have received. They effectively have a different culture to their parents, due to their parents’ indulgence and are now part of the Columbian English Educated Elite with different values.

The state of perplexity or quandary is that the parents have knowingly or unknowingly created a product that they cannot identify with, due to their recognition that they need to give their offspring the chance they wish they had but did not due to financial circumstances.

It creates this hybrid offspring, who values living and working overseas, as meritocracy does not seem to work in Sri Lanka, leaving their aged parents left in Sri Lanka to rue their creation, and their whole life’s sacrifice as being good for the recipient but unsatisfactory for the giver, the parents.

I am not here to opine that parents should not make this ultimate sacrifice, but to inform, or warn the parents, of the likely result of their action, with the most likely favorable outcome, for them to live overseas with their children if they wish to be with them during their retirement on the assumption that the host countries will permit this kind of family union, which many Western Countries do not encourage and make extremely difficult to fulfill.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If someone gets a privileged education and is intelligent, they will soon realize that a good education they have will not be appreciated nor rewarded sufficiently within Sri Lanka, due to a whole host of reasons. They will find better opportunities overseas than in Sri Lanka.

The problem as far as Sri Lanka is concerned is that if they emigrate to the West, then they are lost forever and their education and cost and investment does not benefit Sri Lanka at all. If they go only for a temporary period of years say up to 5 to get experience and confidence, where they can join an international organization on their return and be well rewarded then it is of value to the SL Economy.

The nigger in the woodpile is our political system and corruption and lack of meritocracy in appointments, that does not inspire confidence about the prospects of healthy economic growth and so intelligent people vote with their feet by not returning as their is no future.

Anonymous said...

This analogy is particularly apt, as children of this generation, do not have inherited wealth to fall back on, or live off if they return to Sri Lanka, in some level of comfort. They know how difficult/expensive owning a home from earnings is in Colombo, where the better jobs are. I know that people on Rs200K a month can only afford to live 30km or more out of Colombo and have to spend hours on their commute each day and each way.

For an intelligent person who is productive that is sheer lunacy, and so living in SL, if a suitable opening is available elsewhere is just not an option. The rulers do not do anything to lessen this pain, so we are really doing everything to drive out our best and brightest, never to return except for the occasional holiday.

So all the public investment is not yielding any return, we have a problem, and need to rethink our education priorities if our farmers are being taxed so they help foreign countries as the education they pay for results in people going overseas to make their fortune, with no return to Sri Lanka