By Rajiva Wijesinha
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch (Kipling)
I met Minister Lokubandara for the first time last week, and was promptly taken to task. He pointed out that I had done him some injustice in once writing that he had sent his son to an International School when he was Minister of Education. He had in fact taken his son out of the International School then, he said, and sent him instead to Revatha Vidyalaya, which was the local school nearest his residence. His complaint was that I had not mentioned that, and I promised him that I would do so as soon as possible.

My feeling that I should make amends was prompted not only by his evident sorrow that the whole story had not been told, but also by a greater anguish he expressed in suggesting that he had been removed from the position of Minister of Education because he was not an old Royalist. He pointed out that before him there had been Nissanka Wijeyeratne and Ranil, and after him Lalith Athulathmudali, all from what he said was a very different social class.

I do not think that that was the reason, and in fact pointed out that the change had taken place under Premadasa, but I don’t think he took it in. And it struck me then that his regrets, and indeed the misunderstanding of the point I had been trying to make when I wrote the article he had evidently read so carefully, were symptomatic of the problem I was trying to address.

I tried to say as much, when I told Mrs Lokubandara, who seemed extremely nice and perceptive, that I fully supported the view that she had a right to decide what was best for her child. My point was not that the boy should not have been sent to an International School if his parents thought English medium education was best for him. Indeed, even more strongly would I argue that he should not have been sent to the local school, which evidently was not his mother’s first choice, to fulfil a political requirement. Rather my whole point was that all children everywhere should have the widest opportunities possible, and parents like Mrs L should be allowed to choose freely what they think is in the best interests of their children.

The boy, I am glad to say, has done well, and is evidently reading now for a London University degree, externally, I hasten to add, while remaining in Sri Lanka. The fact that it is an English medium degree is a tribute to his mother’s care and concern, and I should congratulate his father too, for encouraging or at least permitting this.

But my point was, very simply, that such opportunities should be made available to others too, all those who go to Revatha Vidyalaya, or Rambaikkulam MV in Vavuniya or Mahmud Balika in Kalmunai, out of necessity rather than choice. And I am very sorry that neither Mr Lokubandara, nor the Royalists who preceded and succeeded him, thought of opening up opportunities to equip all our children for the new world into which that government claimed it was moving us.

It was left instead to Susil Premjayanth to bring the proposal before Cabinet, and to Tara de Mel to shoot ahead with implementation. Of course they knew that the opportunity could not be given to everyone straight away, but they formulated a programme that ensured that equity was pursued, in that they paid their greatest attention to the more distant areas that would otherwise have lost out without thoughtful targeting. They also made provision for a solid programme of teacher training that would give the initial bold volunteers the basic skills and confidence. At the same time they had planned to prepare the higher professional levels to move on to Science and Social Studies in English in Year 7 in 2003, in schools all over the country.

All that has unfortunately fallen by the wayside. The superb team that was established has not been permitted to conduct a single workshop since February. The woefully incompetent in house staff at the Ministry of Education forgot to book venues, or claimed that the NIE had no room. This last, oddly enough, or perhaps not oddly, happened after it was decided that all payments to the NIE were to be made by cheque, instead of in cash as had been the practice previously.

I should add that the World Bank has now promised an inquiry into various suspicious transactions. And, only I think because the Bank had the sense to entrust production of books to a Non-Governmental Organization, the third set of English medium materials for Year 6 has been despatched to schools. Excellent consultants, having expressed horror at the contents of the textbooks inflicted on the poor children, are now producing I hope somewhat more educative English medium texts for Science and Social Studies in Year 7. With luck, following Presidential intervention, something might be done about the discovery that the current Year 6 Maths book actually regresses in comparison with the new Primary books, simply because the different sections of the NIE failed to coordinate their reforms.

But all this, I should note, is mere tinkering compared to the deep structural reform that is essential. Talking to Mr Lokubandara I realized, despite his other charms, how silly it was of me to have criticized him for failing to conceptualize and act on the deficiencies his good wife had noted in the system. Much more perceptive though Mr Kodituwakku is, I realize that, with the structures he presides over, he too will find it difficult to achieve any results.

The multiple book option the Ministry pays lip service to, but which its own officials have quietly destroyed, is what we need, the calling in of professional text books produced by publishers with experience and understanding of contemporary curricula the world over. Leaving it all to Chandrika’s frogs will only ensure that the next generation will dig, as she so graphically put it, deeper and deeper into the well. Young Lokubandara may have escaped, to a London University degree, and a bright and broad-minded future; but I suspect that has more to do with his mother’s commitment and intelligence than with what he learned from the curriculum he followed at Revatha Vidyalaya.