Why scrap the scholarship examination?
December 26, 2013, 12:00 pm , the island
It is surprising that the vociferous proponents of free education are silent about the decision of the Minister of Education to scrap the fifth standard scholarship examination. It would seem that because government party politicians fill the prestigious schools with their supporters or those who can influence them, these prestigious schools do not have vacancies to take in those who pass the scholarship examination.
The entire rationale for free education is to ensure equality of opportunity for children from poor families to compete for the better quality education which was available earlier in the denominational schools. These schools were taken over by the government to ensure equality of opportunity. The education imparted in the urban schools with prestigious names is far superior to that in the rural schools despite the claims of government ministers that they will raise thousand schools to the same status.
Schools that are prestigious today gained that position through long years of dedicated service with access to good teachers and facilities. The rural schools are the preserve of political appointments and the teachers are poorly qualified if qualified at all. So there is no question of equating the education provided by the prestigious schools with that in the rural schools or less popular schools.
The question is whether these prestigious schools should be the preserve of the rich and the powerful or available to those who are best fitted to benefit from their education.
Education is just another form of investment: people invest in education, as they invest in anything else, to make more money—in the form of increased earnings in the future. So by providing access to these popular schools to those who pass the scholarship examination we will be providing for fairness and equality of opportunity. The great merit of free education was that it allowed the children from lower income urban and semi-urban families to access these popular schools. But this benefit did not spread to the rural families.
The fifth standard scholarship provided a mechanism for children who are good but whose parents are in lower income brackets to benefit from a superior education- an education which is scarce despite the promises of the politicians since independence to upgrade the schools in the outstations. Income per se should not matter for education decisions: Piyadasa will get less education than John because his parents are poorer and living far from the popular schools even if the income gains from education are the same for both.
Scarce places in popular schools should go to those talented and capable of benefiting from such education rather than those whose parents can afford to pay the fees or live close to the school. If parental income or nearness to a school ( also related to income level) plays such a vital role in determining educational investment, rich children will get a better education even if they are not particularly talented, and talented poor children may be deprived of a superior education.
Education should benefit those who are talented and a society that provides the opportunity for gifted children, deprived for whatever reason, of the benefit from the best education available in the country, will promote both economic benefits since those who can benefit from a superior education will be an asset while those who fill these schools and are unable to benefit from their education will be an economic waste. Similarly there will be social benefits when there is equality of opportunity irrespective of the level of incomes of their parents.
What is required is not to scrap the scholarship examination but to reduce the subjects and make it less dependent on the acquisition of knowledge and more on measuring intelligence and general knowledge.
Barbara Seneviratne says, ‘If the ministers of education past and present had any knowledge of child psychology this very competitive exam could have been considered not of any help to the child. They are made to cram only a few subjects. Those subjects are not relevant for the new class which they would attend the following year.’ Yes, the answer is to change the syllabus and make it more oriented to measuring intelligence and general knowledge.
R.M.B Senanayake
