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Education does not mean just book knowledge

Shenali Waduge

One of the realities of the present situation plaguing our education system today is the over indulgence on passing the exam. One would expect very high results considering the high percentage of tuition goers in both urban and rural Sri Lanka. However the O/L results of 2007 revealed tuition teachers contrary to common perception do not have any magic to usher brilliant results.

Sri Lanka’s education culture is plagued with a need to feel a step ahead of the other child – this notion gets carried from parent to child and from there onwards the cancer starts to spread. The stiff competition imbedded in a child no sooner he/she enters montessori builds to greater proportion as the years go by & made worse by the favoritism of teachers whose actions are often swayed by parents who are ever ready to “give” anything extra to ensure ones child is given prominence over others.

This ill-practice soon creates an atmosphere that is not at all conducive to the learning that a child should receive from any school. We have the richer children soon becoming aware of their importance and how they could push their way through administrative systems while the lesser privileged children may stick it out in silence, feel a significant inferiority complex & even perhaps blame their parents for their plight. But it is these ills that usually get carried over the years even to university & comes out eventually when they try to finally become the “boss” through student circles in the form of ragging the “rich” who enter – thus turning the tables around.

This is a social malice created by our own selves and for which parents rich and poor as well as middle class should shoulder equal blame. However, these are things that can be defeated and it takes a courageous Principal and his/her team combining innovative techniques to be able to rise above shadow systems. However, we find that some Principals, teachers and administrators in schools have in fact aggravated the scenario for their own gains. We hear of Principals & teachers who have been accused of taking bribes during admissions, molesting children, running brothels, indulging in pornography, beating children and the list continues. True children need education outside of their textbooks but children should not have to go through such “education” which leaves irreparable damage to not only themselves but also breaks down an entire family.

The Ministry of Education inter alia the Principals and teachers need to realize that each child spends a significant time within the school complex. The time-tables, the discipline expected & the rules that should prevail in addition to the guided teaching should enable the child to carry invaluable lessons that the child will never forget – these lessons should be good lessons and not those the child has to take pains to forget. The teacher becomes sort of a mother – the child in his/her innocence is usually mindful of how the teacher dresses, talks, behaves etc.. However, teachers do not seem to know or perhaps may choose to ignore this. A child as they begin school is ever mindful of learning something new however most of the primary teachers today are either shouldering personal problems which are often taken out on these children or have not been taught the art of “teaching” a young child.

Added to this is the startling news we hear across the daily newspapers. Many Principals, teachers, administrators and children are following a path completely different to what is expected of them. Sadly enough it is these very people who enter society eventually and take the wrongs they have been committing to another high & their story continues in worse dimensions.

It is the ill-practices that have prevailed in the education system aggravated by the authorities manning the schools which has created the mess in Sri Lanka’s education system. If the children are to be blamed for their part they may be forgiven due to their youthfulness but what about the authorities who knowingly have played a pivotal role in taking this issue for countless debates & answers which are really within reach but will remain in stalemate because of the lack of courageous people to change the systems.

What is important today is that children need to know much more than mastering the art of memorizing their textbooks and scoring brilliantly. Adults should not feel that their childs scores equates to having “learnt” – we are living in a world of bad people because “learning” hasn’t been properly imparted to children but it is not too late and before any child is taught it would be good for the Ministry to engage the School Administrators in an exercise of not what to teach but how to teach.

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