Selective development and creation of more privileged schools

November 2, 2012, 8:20 pm , The Island


According to Minister Bandula Gunawardnna the govt. is due to launch a new programme to upgrade 10000 secondary schools under what is known as Mahindodaya school development programme. Chandrika, as president, launched a similar programme Navodaya to selectively develop some schools. We are not aware how they are doing today. What need is there to give special names or epithets to such development programmes such as Navodaya and Mahindodaya?. Why shouldn’t they all be ‘Janodaya’ schools?

All minister of education during the last sixty four years have toyed with their pet schemes to develop schools and put education on the right track and failed miserably due to lack of proper planning and the failure to get the cooperation of the opposition so that the system will not be changed with every change of govt. This frequent change has been education’s karma.

In 1972 an additional secretary in the education ministry said at a meeting of the principals that the new system was launched without planning because planning would have delayed the launching of the system and that it would have come under severe criticism had it been made public before launching. That system died with the defeat of the govt. or even before. Today probably the minister has no idea about the development of schools and the president has to intervene and as such the programme is named after him

The proposed programme will create another set of privileged schools while the others are neglected.

There are very poorly maintained schools within the Colombo city itself and in the remote areas there are schools that may not have ever seen a maths, science or English teacher. Why doesn’t the minister develop them

If the minister is really interested in putting education on the right track he must get a Parliament Select Committee to draw up a new system, both short and long term, so that the systems cannot be changed with the change of government without continuing to do patch work for ever.

S. Abeywickrama

Nugegoda