Prof Savitri Goonesekere’s whiff of grapeshot

November 5, 2011, 6:22 pm

by Rajiva Wijesinha

I was pleasantly entertained by Prof Savitri Goonasekere’s references to myself and Dayan Jayatilleke in her long critique of recent developments with regard to Higher Education. The thrust of the article is to attack the reforms proposed by the Minister, S B Dissanayake. Apart from Minister Mervyn Silva, the only two individuals referred to disparagingly by name are Dayan and myself.

I was reminded on reading this of the attack on Minister Dissanayake in the recent US review of Human Rights in Sri Lanka. Apart from Ministers Wimal Weerawansa and Douglas Devananda, two individuals the Americans in general would love to hate, S B was the only Minister mentioned by name. As I wrote at the time, there seemed no obvious reason to hate S B, so that the reason for the attack, prepared I believe by the less civilized elements in the U S Embassy, was probably the flirtation they were carrying on with the JVP. The JVP were doubtless as cynical in their reasons for accepting the advances made, though perhaps that little side-show has been suspended by other developments in the JVP now.

Saner elements in the West, as I have had proven again and again in conversation, have a much higher opinion of S B, and believe as I do that his efforts to reform the University system must be supported. They may not of course agree with all his initiatives, but by and large they recognize that he is an effective Minister with very progressive ideas, and that unless his reforms are expedited, education and thus society in Sri Lanka will not move forward as demanded by the current world situation.

Just as those who prepared the US Report on Human Rights realized that denigration of S B was a way of attacking reform, so too it would seem that Prof Goonesekere, with some intellectual confusion regrettable in one of her renown, thinks attacking Dayan and me would be useful in pursuing her ends. The gratuitous reference to Mervyn Silva, the only member of the government mentioned by name in this article, is typical of propaganda techniques unworthy of a distinguished academic.

Whilst I am sure Dayan can look after himself, and I trust he will do so in his usual incisive prose, I must point out that Prof Goonesekere is really rather childish in suggesting that what I wrote might be ‘a subtle endorsement to (sic) the creation of a para military force within universities and among youth groups’. I hope entirely innocently, she confuses two things, with no regard for either facts or chronology. First she cites a document of the Friday Forum to criticize the recent ‘much publicized leadership programme for new students’. It is a pity she did not consult, instead of the antediluvian alliance, the students of her old school who participated in the programme, or its Principal, who have made clear how successful that programme was.

Then she claimes that there is ‘a proposal for the Ministry of Defence to integrate a "cadet programme" into English teacher training for schools that come under the Ministry of Education. Since her evidence for this, as is apparent from the rest of the article, is something I wrote, it is a pity that she has not read carefully. What I mentioned was that ‘the Education Ministry seems to have put a stop to the heartening initiative of the Secretary of Defence to commission Tamil officers into the Cadet Corps through a programme of training teachers of English’. The poor woman obviously failed to register that there had been a programme previously, that it was for commissioning Tamil officers into the Cadet Corps, and that those officers were to be deployed as English teacher. For those who are not aware of this, it relates to a scheme whereby, even at the height of the conflict, the Ministry of Defence affirmed its commitment to a multi-ethnic army by recruiting Tamils into the Cadet Officer Corps. Why Prof Goonesekere confused this with a cadet programme in English teacher training for schools is incomprehensible, unless prejudice has trumped her undoubted intelligence.

She goes further lower down in her article, in attacking as possibly subtle paramilitarization, my suggestion of catch up education arranged by the military. She claims there is no explanation ‘as to why the military should undertake this work’ but I had pointed out that the idea arose from the successful pre-university course, that combined a range of skills in addition to learning. The para is worth citing in full –

‘In a practical way, such training could offer basic qualifications involving languages plus vocational and aesthetic training, with a package that would allow those who were interested to obtain the six passes at Ordinary Level that would qualify them to join various branches of government service. A more streamlined approach to catch up education can easily be devised, which would also ensure the psycho-social attention, including through cultural activities and sports, that many in the region may require. ‘

While there are doubtless other ways in which such programmes could be offered, I don’t suppose Prof Goonesekere has thought either of the problem, or of any alternatives. This is typical of an approach that criticizes efforts at reform, having singularly failed to promote any when exercising authority herself. Instead she seems determined to denigrate those who do promote much needed reforms, which she herself used to agree were needed, even though she had neither the capacity nor the determination to promote them. Her snide comments about her successor as Vice-Chancellor in Colombo, a lady who had taken the University forward in a number of ways, are characteristic of someone whose elevation to the position of Vice-Chancellor, and her dashing of the hopes of those who saw her as a breath of fresh air, exemplified Parkinson’s Law about people rising to their level of incompetence. She was of course, I have been told, a splendid Professor of Law at the Open University.

Prof Goonesekere’s confusion is apparent in her misdating of efforts at reform, and when she talks of Dr Tara de Mel and Prof R P Jayewardene being senior bureaucrats in the Ministry of Higher Education when Richard Pathirana was Minister. Richard Pathirana ceased to be a Minister in 2000. Tara headed a task force during Minister Pathirana’s time, then became Secretary of Education in 2000, and only took on Higher Education as well when the Ministries were combined again in late 2001. Prof Jayawardene was Secretary of the joint Ministry earlier, but took on Higher Education alone when the Ministries were split in 2000. The IRQUE Project was conceived in Tara’s time, but only became operational after the UNP government took over, which led to its distortion as Prof Goonesekere’s indicates.

This may just be carelessness. More worrying is Prof Goonesekere’s lack of intellectual rigour in her critique of Dayan and me as having taught in State universities and suggesting that we have forgotten the horrors of the late eighties. We have not done so and, unlike Prof Goonesekere who continued to hold office in the university system at the time, we made our opposition clear at the time. I believe Prof Goonesekere shared my view of the enormities of what the Jayewardene government was up to, but whereas I resigned from my university position and campaigned actively against the 1983 referendum, Prof Goonesekere stuck to her exalted position within the system. I make no criticism of this, for she had a young family to look after, and I have always accepted that my own resignation was not a great sacrifice since I could survive quite happily by teaching English.

But the holier than thou attitude she now adopts, scattering her grapeshot at unnamed University officers, is really rather sad for a distinguished lady who once told me, when I asked her to take a greater interest in the Board of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies on which she served together with Dr Jayatilleke and myself, that her grandchildren were of greater importance. She should stick to her preferred list, instead of doing down one of the most effective and imaginative Ministers we have.

CORRECTING A DISTORTION BY PROF SAVITHRI GOONASEKERE

November 5, 2011, 6:23 pm


Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

I write with extreme dismay at a reference to me in Prof Goonasekere’s article last Sunday entitled ‘Creating ‘Knowledge Hubs and Destroying University Autonomy’ (Sunday Island, October 30, 2011). She writes as follows:

"Drs. Dayan Jayatillake and Rajiva Wijesinha who were academics in the national universities have publicly supported the militarised leadership training programme. Dr. Jayatillake sees in the leadership programme an excellent model for creating what in effect will be a "para military" youth corp "trained in the use of weapons" that could "bleed to death with a thousand cuts" any outside force or puppet regime seeking to destabilise the country. [Island 31 August 2011.] Rajiva Wijesinha reinforces this view point, apparently for different reasons." (‘Creating ‘Knowledge Hubs and Destroying University Autonomy’ by Savitri Goonesekere, Sunday Island, October 30, 2011)

She should know that if one uses a phrase within inverted commas, and ends the passage with a source, i.e. citing an article, it is an indication that the phrase within inverts derives from the article. If instead, one is merely paraphrasing, one does not use inverted commas. If one uses inverts around a phrase that DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE IN THE TEXT THAT IS REFERRED TO, it is, to put it mildly, misleading and is not a practice encouraged in journalism, let alone academia.

Prof Goonasekere uses within inverts, the term "para military" and says it is something that I have advocated. This is a sleight of hand. The word ‘paramilitary’ appears nowhere in my article. Furthermore, a Google search will show that I have never advocated a ‘paramilitary’ anywhere, in over three decades of published political writings.

For purposes of record, let me reproduce what I did write:

"Our deterrent capacity cannot depend upon a vastly expanded army of almost half a million, as a former commander mistakenly called for, because the economic costs would sink the country. Nor should anyone envisage compulsory national service in the form of a draft because the USA itself learnt to its bitter social cost that the best army is an all-volunteer army. However, a recent successful experiment has been conducted in Sri Lanka with the armed forces’ support, for an orientation course of university entrants. In preparation for a worst case scenario, that model could be expanded to provide a huge youth/student populace, including women, trained in the use of weapons, and which could make any invader, secessionist or irredentist puppet regime (and its army’) bleed from death by a thousand cuts. As Fidel Castro once said when Cuba was under threat of intervention, "we shall arm even the cats!"

Sri Lanka must protect itself against two erroneous schools of thought, both of which sin against Realism. One fails to comprehend the basic conflict of interest between Sri Lanka’s national interests and those states that call for so-called accountability hearings. These states are driven by Tamil Diaspora lobbies, contempt for national sovereignty (except for their own) and an emerging Cold War competition with China. The pseudo-pragmatic school of ‘professional’ capitulationists and appeasers fails to perceive the threat from this quarter and the requirement of global resistance. The other school of thought is that of those who fail to understand the imperative need for compromises and concessions on the secondary and the tactical, so that a strong protective ring can be reconstructed on our perimeter, i.e., our neighborhood, thereby protecting that which is essential: Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and the gains of the historic military victory.

The most durable defense against interventionism is by simultaneously changing our ‘target profile’ and ‘target hardening’. This can be done only by repairing our internal fragility; removing the discontent and disaffection of the minority at our strategically sensitive Northern periphery. But can that be done and how can it be done? The best answer is in The Fear of Barbarians by Tzventan Todorov, Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique (CNRS), Paris. In this book, described by the great scholar of international relations, Prof Stanley Hoffman of Harvard and Science Po, as "more than a masterpiece, [it is] a treasure", Prof Todorov speaks of the need to replace or transform an ethnocracy into a modern democracy: "a modern democracy is to be distinguished from an ethnocracy, i.e., a state in which belonging to a particular ethnic group ensures you of privileges over the other inhabitants of a country; in a democracy, all citizens, whatever their origin, language, religion or customs enjoy the same rights." (p 67)

(‘Libyan Lessons for Lanka’, Dayan Jayatilleka, The Island, Aug 31st, 2011)

Intellectual and scholarly standards require that both ‘text’ and ‘context’ be carefully taken into account in the practice of critique. In distorting what I had written Prof Goonesekere has been unfair, lapsing on both counts.

CLINICAL TRAINING

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) said that the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) has advised Nawaloka private hospital not to permit SAITM medical students to attend clinical classes in the hospital as the private institution was not in the legal capacity to do so.
GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said this advice was given at a recent discussion among private hospital owners and directors, the SLMC Chairperson, Health Ministry Director General, the Health Minister, GMOA committee members and other stakeholders of the medical sector.

“The SLMC stated that SAITM students cannot be allowed to do clinical training in private hospitals as the institution received legal recognition only after the issuing of a gazette notification on August 30. Therefore students that were enrolled to SAITM before this date cannot be allowed to work in private hospitals as they do not comply with the conditions in the gazette notice. As all SAITM students were enrolled before this date, none of the students are eligible to work in hospitals,” GMOA Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said.
He said that earlier this week Nawaloka hospital had agreed to give four rooms in the hospital free of charge for clinical training of SAITM medical students but Dr. Marasinghe said this would be inadequate. “It is absurd. In government hospitals students take on clinical training from 6am till 10pm in the night. We do not understand the ad hoc manner in which they are trying to conduct clinical training for the SAITM students,” he said.

PRIVATE MEDICAL COLLEGE REPORT OUT SOON: MINISTRY

The Health Ministry said yesterday that the five-member committee appointed to investigate the private medical college in Malabe which has come under strong criticism in recent times by government doctors and local medical faculty students was still in the deliberation process and the committee would release its report in the coming weeks.
Health Ministry Secretary Dr. Ravindra Ruberu said once the report was completed the committee recommendations would be implemented and that existing issues pertaining to the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) would be resolved.

Although SAITM recently announced that Dr. Ruberu had agreed to provide government hospitals for clinical training, he said he had not given such assurances to the institution.
“The statements made by them gave the impression that I had discussed the matter with them but there were no discussions on the matter. The ministry had not given approval to the institution to carry out clinical classes in government hospitals,” Dr. Ruberu said.

MAJOR CHANGES TO O/L EXAMSFROM 2013

Students to select A/L subjects in grade-9

New policy will be introduced next year along with major changes to the entire school education system
BANDULA GUNAWARDANE

The Education Ministry will introduce overall changes to the national examinations next year making it compulsory for students to choose their GCE A/L study stream at Grade nine, instead of waiting till they complete their GCE O/L examination, Minister Bandula Gunawardane said yesterday. He said the new policy would be introduced next year along with major changes to the entire school education system to be implemented from 2013 onwards.
The parliamentary consultative committee which was set up to work out this policy has wrapped up its proceedings and is preparing its final report to be tabled in parliament. Minister Gunwardane said it would be mandatory for the students to complete six core subjects for the O/L examination from 2013 and three optional subjects in relation to their chosen stream of study for the A/L examination.
The core subjects are the Mother Tongue (either Sinhala or Tamil), the Second Language (English), Mathematics, Social Study, Religion and Science.
“In addition to these subjects, Grade-nine students will have to choose three other subjects related to their A/L studies. If a student intends to take up Commerce Subjects for the A/L exam, he or she should select accounting, economics and business studies. In such a context, they can enter the A/L classes with a basic understanding of these subjects. Today, students do the O/L exam and start A/L studies without any knowledge of the subjects involved. It is burdensome for students,” the minister

said.
Similarly students who intend to do their A/L studies in the science stream will be given a basic understanding of Chemistry, Biology and Physics from Grade-9 to 11.
At present it is mandatory for students to study six core subjects along with three other subjects selected from three different subject baskets. The Minister said this system of selecting subjects from baskets would be abolished with the introduction of the new policy next year to be implemented the following year.
“When students select subjects from these baskets, they choose subjects which have no relevance to their advanced level studies,” he said.
The minister said a similar system for A/L studies was adopted during the time of the late C.W.W. Kannangara who was a former minister of education.
“Today, the A/L exam is too advanced for students. What is meant for university students is sometimes taught to A/L students,” he said.

Change in education

School children will be required to decide their stream of study for the Advanced Level Examination at Grade 9, instead of waiting till they get their Ordinary Level Examination results from 2013 onwards, Minister Bandula Gunawardane said today.

Minister Gunwardane told the Daily Mirror that the Ministry would announce the decision to the police in this regard next year. In this respect, he said, students have to study six core subjects and three optional subjects related to their chosen stream of study for the Advanced Level Examination. (By Kelum Bandara)

Privatisation and keeping standards in medical education

November 4, 2011, 7:18 pm


NOTEBOOK OF A NOBODY
by Shanie

"I envision the universities as an educational pyramid whose base is wide and wide open to everyone, whether they have pre-requisites or not. We should open our doors to the country as a whole. We should then pay attention to the middle level, the substantive body of the pyramid, and, finally, make the best possible resources available to the apex. This would enable us to combine the notion of excellence with social responsibility and social justice."

Five years ago, Professor Senake Bandaranaike was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Open University of Sri Lanka. In his Convocation Address, he dwelt on the subject of higher education. His reflections and analysis of what is needed to take higher education forward in our country are founded on a rounded academic career involving research, teaching, writing and university administration. They also show that archaeologists are not merely into digging up the past but can also provide insights for the present and the future.

Last week, the Socialist Study Circle had a well-attended seminar at the Dr N M Perera Centre on higher education at which two young academics from Peradeniya and the Open University made presentations. This was followed by a quite lively discussion in which many academics, senior and junior, participated. The focus of the discussion was on the privatization of education and Professor Senake Bandaranaike’s 2006 Convocation Address has much relevance to the issues raised at that seminar discussion. This also the subject of debate in the country at this time.

There has been much denigration recently, mainly by short-sighted politicians and unthinking bureaucrats with private agendas, of the quality of education and graduates being produced by the university system. A top bureaucrat in the Ministry of Higher Education had reportedly asked a delegation of academics from FUTA recently whether the universities could turn out travel guides for the tourist industry! It is not known whether he merely meant to humiliate the academics or if the man had no understanding of university education. But, it was asked in all seriousness. Such is the quality of the people who seek to decide on higher education policies and dictate to the academics in university administration and to the regulators in the University Grants Commission.

It is true that standards have drastically lowered from the heyday of the then University of Ceylon, which was its first two decades. But the system still produces men and women of quality. What Bandaranaike said in 2006 still holds true: ’Whenever I have any doubts about the quality of our universities – and I am sure that all of us do have those doubts and will also agree that questioning and criticism are the essence of progress and development – these are immediately dispelled when I meet with so many excellent products of our university system, of all generations, in many different working situations. The human potential that is so often reflected by the university product, the intellectual and social energies that are generated and released by the university experience, seem to outstrip any deficiencies that are there in the educational and professional training universities impart.’

Contribution of the private sector

Privatisation of education has been going on for quite some time, both at secondary and tertiary levels. At the secondary level, several ‘international schools’ have sprung up, some of which are of sound quality, comparable to the best among the old established ‘local’ schools, private and state. These new schools prepare students in the English medium for internationally recognized examinations. At the tertiary level, many private institutes have been set up to prepare students for the degree examinations of foreign universities. These are mainly in the humanities, law and the pure sciences. There are also institutes preparing students for post-secondary professional (mainly in the fields of IT and Accountancy) examinations of internationally recognised professional bodies. These provisions for privatized secondary and post-secondary education are welcome. It opens up avenues for higher education within the country to a greater number. But graduates of such institutes suffer a serious disadvantage as they lack the benefits of cross-disciplinary intellectual exchanges, staff-student relationships, access to a good Library, etc that an in-campus student at a university will enjoy. Yet there can be doubt that the quality of a degree awarded by a reputed foreign university through their local partner will conform to the standards of that university.

However, this access to private institute preparing students for a degree awarded by a recognized foreign university is available only to a class of students who can afford the high fees. This is why there should be no reduction in funding and support for state institutions and universities. It is the concept of free education introduced in the nineteen forties as part of educational reforms in the State Council that has made Sri Lanka one of the most literate countries in the world. It is those reforms that have produced some outstanding scholars and professionals whose potential may otherwise have been wasted in the desert air.

The need for quality

Access to wider higher education must not be at the expense of quality, particularly in a professional field like medicine. This quality needs to be ensured particularly in the private sector. The state sector, by the very nature of their existence, will have quality; though in Sri Lanka, over the years, educational policies of succeeding governments have eroded that quality. Leading academics, most recently Professor Savitri Goonesekere in last week’s Sunday Island, have referred to this on a number of occasions. The private sector, unlike the state sector, enters into the field of education (or any other field) primarily for commercial reasons. They will invest in education, only if sufficient returns can be obtained in as short a time span as possible. Private medical schools have prospered in other countries, including in neighbouring India. They continue to provide internationally recognized medical degrees. Many Sri Lankans have benefitted from these private medical schools, with their degrees recognized by the Sri Lanka Medical Council, and these medical graduates serve now in the state and private health sector in the country. But all those private medical schools were set up for commercial gain – the only exceptions possibly being the Christian Medical Colleges in Vellore and Ludhiana which were set up perhaps for a variety of other reasons. Those reasons do not concern us here now.

We will be fooling ourselves if we believe that the newly established BOI approved venture South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine at Malabe was set up for any reason other than commercial gain. It is understood that more than one batch of students have been enrolled. The admission requirements will certainly not be up to the same standards as set by the University Grants Commission for admission to the Medical Colleges in the Sri Lankan university system. But that is the way6 the system works. Many of our students who fail to gain admission to local universities end up obtaining admission to private universities elsewhere. But what concerns everyone concerned with higher education in our country is the quality of the medical degrees being offered at the Malabe institute. This Institute falls outside the purview of the University Grants Commission. Professor Sherifdeen articulated the concerns of the medical profession when he stated recently that quality medical education requires clinical training throughout a student’s career in the medical college. Sadly, the Malabe institute is now not equipped to provide any clinical training to its students.

Clinical Training

In response to criticism on this issue, the Malabe Institute says it is now in the process of setting up a Teaching Hospital also at Malabe. This is like putting the cart before the horse. A Hospital equipped with adequate facilities in all branches of medicine, with patients and clinical staff, should have been a pre-requisite for admission of students. The management now claims that they are making arrangements, obviously being hastily done to meet criticism, with hospitals in the private sector to provide clinical training. Even a layperson familiar with the working of private hospitals will know that consultants at these private hospitals just will not be able devote the time required to provide proper clinical training to the medical students. The teaching staff at the Malabe institute will not have the luxury of having their own patients at the private hospitals. So any scheme to provide clinical training at private hospitals will be totally unacceptable to meet the rigorous standards of any quality medical education.

In the pursuit of commercial gain, the Malabe Institute is not playing fair by the students it has already enrolled. The students, if they are able to go through the four years at Malabe and the fifth year in Russia, will probably end up with an MD degree awarded by the Russian Medical Academy to which the Malabe Institute is affiliated. But for them to practice their profession, at least in Sri Lanka, their degree will need to be recognized. The Sri Lanka Medical Council has very high and rigorous standards for such recognition. Will the Malabe-trained Russian graduates be able to meet those standards?

There are issues other than clinical training involved regarding the quality of medical education at the Malabe Institute. For instance, one concern is the quality of its permanent teaching staff. Already, its Director, a former general practitioner, politician and now a business entrepreneur, is being referred to as a ‘Professor’. In the state universities, the UGC has laid down strict criteria for promotion in the university to the rank of Professor. In BOI ventures presumably, no such regulatory standards will apply. Some years ago, another medical business entrepreneur ran an alternate medicine institute and styled himself ‘Professor’. There must be a regulatory body like the UGC to ensure that academic titles are used in conformity with acceptable criteria.

A large amount of capital has been invested in the Malabe Institute. But the pursuit of quick returns should not be at the expense of quality. It has the potential to provide access to medical studies for young men and women who can afford it. But the Institute needs to work in co-operation with and conform to the standards set by the regulatory bodies for medical graduates. That is the only way to treat the future of their students with dignity and integrity.

 

Mother Tongues and Multilingual Education

November 3, 2011, 7:46 pm

The term ‘multilingual education’ which embodies the idea of using at least three languages in education, namely, the mother tongue, a regional or national language, and an international language was adopted by the United Nations’ Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at its General Conference in 1999. As one of its important roles, the organization provides international frameworks and parameters for educational policy makers to guide their decisions about complex issues. Language, or rather the choice of the language of instruction, is one such area. A 2003 UNESCO position paper about mother tongue and multilingual education makes this observation: "While there are strong educational arguments in favour of mother tongue (or first language) instruction, a careful balance also needs to be made between enabling people to use local languages in learning, and providing access to global languages of communication through education."

The UNESCO deals with the linguistic rights issue in multilingual societies in accordance with three basic principles:

UNESCO supports ….

1) "… mother tongue instruction as a means of improving

educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience

of the learners and teachers",

2) "… bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels

of education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality

and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies",

3) "… language as an essential component of inter-cultural

education in order to encourage understanding between different

population groups and ensure respect for fundamental rights".

The ‘multilingual’ education system we are so assiduously working to establish will most likely give rise to a situation where the sort of linguistic rights concerns we have seen raised by linguists in affluent countries with concentrations of immigrants from diverse cultures could apply in respect of our indigenous languages Sinhala and Tamil. This will be so unless we keep a due sense of proportion in the pursuit of excellence through English. In a context where English occupies an privileged position the speakers of local mother tongue languages are at a disadvantage; and it will be again monolingual education through English, not multilingual education. It could be a scenario which will call for the invocation of principles established over the past half a century by the UN for the protection of the linguistic rights of especially minority communities.

As early as 1984 Professor Tove Skutnabb-Kangas of the University of Roskilde, Denmark suggested four different definitions of mother tongue from the perspectives of origin, identification, competence, and function. Mother tongue by origin, she explained, is the first language that a person learns; mother tongue by identification is of two kinds: a) by internal identification, i.e. the language one identifies oneself with, and b) by external identification, i.e. the language that others associate one with; if competence is the defining element, then one’s mother tongue is the language that one knows best; and finally, mother tongue by function means the language that one uses most.

Professor Skutnabb-Kangas discusses her ideas again in an essay in 2008. She considers how definitions of mother tongue could be made relevant to linguistic minorities found within a multilingual society including such linguistic minorities as the deaf who need an appropriate sign language, and the forcibly assimilated Indigenous or other minority children. She thinks that the four short definitions she has described converge for a linguistic majority; but she avers that for linguistic minorities "often a combination of mother tongue definitions by origin and by internal identification is a good mother tongue definition."

Professor Skutnabb-Kangas’s attempts in this connection reveal her concern for the protection of the linguistic human rights of minorities. The same attitude is shared by other Western linguists such as Jim Cummins of the University of Toronto, Canada, and Nadine Dutcher of the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC. USA, who have had the experience of pitting minority languages against a dominant majority language (e.g. in Denmark the sole official language is Danish which is spoken by 90% of the population, while among the minority/foreign languages are English 86%, German 58%, and French 12%; in France the single official language is French with minority languages such as Maghrebi Arabic, Berber, Turkish, etc). They are especially interested in the language rights of immigrant populations in the affluent European and North American societies, and in allied countries where the local languages are both the majority languages and the dominant languages, and where ‘linguicism’ is identified as threatening the linguistic rights of minorities. { Linguicism is a concept and a coinage proposed in the mid-1980’s by Professor Skutnabb-Kangas. It denotes what she calls  "ideologies and structures which are used to legitimate, effectuate, and reproduce unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language." The words quoted are reproduced from Wikipedia.}

The suitability of what Skutnabb-Kangas suggests as a good definition of ‘mother tongue’ for minorities ("a combination of mother tongue definitions by origin and by internal identification") to contexts where the language of power is also the language of the majority as in the European and North American countries is clear: it recognises the right of individual members of linguistic and cultural minorities in such societies to adopt, out of the diversity of languages available, the language that is closest to them as their mother tongue.

Sri Lanka’s multilingual situation is the reverse of that found in Europe and North America because the language of the majority (Sinhalese) cannot be called the dominant language here. Both Sinhala and Tamil are official languages, and English is designated in the constitution as a link language. Those who can speak English form a little less than 10% of the population (9.9%). Only about 10,000 people out of a population of roughly 20 million are said to use English as their first language. ("First language" here must be taken as identical with mother tongue, for if the term ‘first language’ is defined as the language someone mainly uses to function in in day to day life, as in education, scientific research, professions, and commerce, then this figure should be substantially higher since English serves as the first language in this sense for many educated Sri Lankans whose mother tongue is Sinhalese or Tamil, which is their usual home language.) The significant thing, nevertheless, is that English dominates the linguistic scene in our society. So, whereas in UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc English dominates as the language of the majority, in Sri Lanka it dominates as the language of a minority. In other words, we have the case of a (numerically) minority language usurping the place of a majority language.

In the Sri Lankan context, however, the term ‘minority language’ when applied to English can be misleading in view of this reality. Though it is the language of a numerical minority, in terms of its influence particularly in such fields as education, research, business, and international communication, it functions as a ‘majority’ language pushing the indigenous languages into ‘minority’ language status in that sense. This dominance of English is not one of choice, but the result of a complex of historical, political, and economic factors specific to our country reinforced by the impact of the phenomenon known as globalization.

A new manifestation of the West’s capitalist domination of the world, globalization is an inescapable fact of life today. It may be an unmixed blessing for business people and industrialists since it opens extensive markets for industry and commerce. Yet it’s not so for others. Though it’s mainly to do with business, it draws the nations together in all important spheres including education, leading to general progress in those areas. But globalization is not always for their benefit. Among the iniquities that it brings in its wake is its tendency to increase the gap between rich and poor nations. Political instability, terrorism, and civil unrest either caused or compounded by economic hardships encourage large movements of people as helpless refugees or desperate job seekers from poor countries to rich countries.

The movement of populations is thus usually from the poor countries to the rich. The resultant cultural diversity of societies in the host countries is viewed in opposite ways by sections of the local populations: some tolerate it, some don’t. In Canada, for instance, according to Jim Cummins of Toronto University the neo-fascists want immigrants expelled or at least excluded from mainstream society, while the more liberal groups want them to be assimilated. Professor Cummins feels that exclusion and assimilation are similar in that both regard cultural diversity as ‘a problem’ that should be made to disappear.

In Cummins’s view, this way of looking at the phenomenon of cultural diversity that is dominant in EU and North American countries can have disastrous consequences for children and their families. The reason is that assimilation policies tend to discourage students from retaining their native language and culture for fear that it would hinder their ability to identify with the mainstream culture. The subliminal message that is conveyed to them is that they must renounce their allegiance to their home language and culture if they want to be properly integrated into the host society. This involves a violation of UN-recognized human rights (related to language) of communities affected.

Apropos of the multilingual situation in Sri Lanka, there is no question about transforming our education system from monolingual to multilingual status. Probably, however, what multilingual education in our specific context does or should mean is still not clear to many though they think they know. The popular perception seems to be in terms of a so-called quality education through the medium of English with or without a knowledge of Sinhala and Tamil (the mother tongues of 95% of the population). (I’m not saying that this notion corresponds to the policy of the official trilingual plan now underway.)

It has been long established that for a child’s proper education, particularly in the first years, the mother tongue/the home language is the best medium of instruction. Cummins refers to his own writings, and those of others such as Baker and Skutnabbs-Kangas among more recent researches in the field to confirm the importance of the mother tongue for the education of bilingual children. As educators these authorities hold that "children’s cultural and linguistic experience in the home is the foundation of their future learning and we must build on that foundation rather than undermine it; every child has the right to have their talents recognized and promoted within the school". School education should not squander "the linguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources they bring from their homes to our schools and societies". Though these statements were made in connection with multilingual societies different to ours, the importance of the mother tongue for children’s education, and through it to the society at large is the same.

MORE THAN 100 VARSITY STUDENTS SUSPENDED: IUSF

Political victimization, says student union Authorities say they engaged in violence

The Inter-university Students’ Federation (IUSF) said yesterday that as many as 118 university students had been suspended from their studentship during the past few months due to their alleged involvement in various violent activities.
IUSF Convener Sanjeewa Bandara told the Daily Mirror that 32 of these suspended students are from the Sri Jayawardhanapura University, two from Kelaniya University, 13 from the Rajarata University, two from the Sabaragamuwa University, two from the Institute of Indigenous Medicine, three from the Ruhuna University and 56 from the Buddhasravaka Bhikkhu University.

Mr. Bandara cited all these suspensions as attempts by the government to suppress the rights of students with dissenting political views.
Asked for a comment Students’ Affairs Director General Keerthi Mavellage said that action had been taken against them due to their alleged involvements in violence. He said that these students had instigated violence at their universities.
“We have suspended them for varying periods of time. Some have been suspended for three months and the others for one month,” he alleged.

P’deniya undergrads stage demo

November 2, 2011, 9:43 pm

By Cyril Wimalasurendre

KANDY – Over a thousand undergraduates, of the University of Peradeniya, staged a massive demonstration against the police arresting four undergraduates, including two monks, in connection with a protest rally held when Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake visited the Peradeniya University Campus last year.

The demonstrating undergraduates prevented the movement of motor vehicles on the Kandy-Galaha Road at Galaha Junction.