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1. Pingback: indi.ca » Blog Archive » The Breakdown of Schools
2. 

   Everytime you shout that Sri Lanka’s education system needs to be changed, all I have to shout is YES! But the difference is, anyone who’s gone to school in Sri Lanka doesn’t need WB stats to prove it. We’ve been through the system. We don’t need figures and research to prove things are very very fucked up.

   Their stats may be right, and I have never said that Sri Lanka doesn’t needs a serious restructuring of our educational system. We do. Anyone who thinks things are fine the way they are is an idiot. But not what the WB is proposing. The WB is very right to say there needs to be drastic change, but they should not dictate to us what that change should be.

   Have you even read their proposals? I suggest you give them a going-through and then talk. Then I’ll give you a few addresses of families who live about an hours drive away from Colombo who have had to take their child out of school because the Ministry of Ed closed down the local school. Go talk to them. Is that just collateral damage to you?

   So how is the WB’s proposal to shut down primary schools with less than a certain number of students going to help? Particularly how this going to help when many of the schools that were shut down were in rural areas?

   And Indi, you had to make this personal. I beg of you again. Do not make this personal.

3. 

   I’m not clear what dire reprecussion I face for ‘making this personal’, but I did hear you the first time. You’ve already researched my mother and grandfather, I can give you some more pointers if you’d like to keep digging.

   I think one basic difference is that you seem to operate from an assumption of infinite funds, whereas I’m assuming that Sri Lanka is a poor country with a limited Education budget. In this comment, I think you’re referring to the government policy of ‘Rationalization’. In small, isolated schools the cost per teacher is about Rs 295 per head, compared to Rs 150 per head in larger schools. Part of the problem is that people have demanded popular, prestigious schooling for their kids, which leads to them leaving the rural schools. The larger schools are not only more efficient, they provide better education to children. My cousins in Kalutara, for example, go to school in Colombo. This means that the rural schools are burning more and more public funds on less and less students:

   About 5,900 schools (60%) have less than 300 students. Further, about 2,700 schools (27%) have under 100 students, and 1,360 schools (14%) have less than 50 students

   It would be great for everyone to have a school within walking distance. It would also be great if everyone in my house had their own bathroom. We just can’t afford it. With its limited budget, the government can’t pay teachers properly and provide quality education without some Rationalization.

   The benefits of this strategy in terms of providing students from small schools with a superiour learning environment in larger schools and increasing the cost-efficiency of the system was not widely understood by local communities

   ‘Rationalization’ is painful and there are countless personal stories where it hurts people. I wish that change was easy and didn’t involve compromises, but in my experience it does. I would love to hear another way to control costs so that Sri Lanka can provide quality education to its citizens.

   On all these issues there are countless sacrifices that can be pointed out. When I moved to Sri Lanka I had to leave my friends and I’m still not happy about it. I thought it was for my greater good, so I did it. In the same way, Sri Lanka has to make painful concessions toward the greater good of educating more children, and educating them well. It is useful to point out this compromises, but it might also be useful to point out an alternate way to the greater good. It is easy to protest change into the ground, but educating people is hard. So, how do we do it with the money we got?

4. 

   I’m sorry if I barge into your conversation,I would like to know the addresses of the families Morquendi’s talking about.To clear up the things ,also list other schools within within 3 miles radius of that address.
   This is the kind of statistics Morquendi mentioned earlier as “Slanted Information” .It is OK when he indulges in it!Since Morquendi doesn’t believe in staticts I will give a example which is an ideal case study.

   Take the example of Roman Catholic primary school located in Kithulampitiya ,Galle.(For outsiders,don’t let the name fool you.It belongs to the state system .It is located inside the church premises).It had about 10-20 students(all of Grade 1-5) and about amost 10 teachers!Obviously this must be a privilaged school get this kind of attention!;-)) Anybody who knows Sri Lankan education system knows what the above numbers say.Those teachers were politicaly privalged individuals who got a free ride out of this dirt poor students going to that tiny school.
   I guess a couple of years ago, their was a decision taken to close the school and JVP also mentioned it as one of the schools WB is closing. I don’t know whether it is already closed .Let’s have a look around Kithulampitya to see what kind of options those 10-20 students have.
   1)The nearest one is Kithulampitya Ananda Vidayala,which is a fairly big school . 5 minutes walk.
   2)Then you have Kalegana Piyatissa Vidyalaya also a “sort of big” school.10 minutes walk.
   Those are non-privilaged schools .

   Then there are privilaged schools !
   Richmond,Rippon,Siridamma,Sangamitta and Mahinda within 15 minutes radius.
   Southlands ,Convent,Aloysious witin 20-30 minutes.
   I can list another 10-20 schools within 30 minutes radius which are not privilaged.

   So what is wrong with closing down Roman Catholic primary school located in Kithulampitiya ,Galle?Why do the tax payers have to spend money for certain privilaged /well connected teachers to have a semi-retirement at the expense of 20 poor students.Why can’t they be enlisted in one (or more) of those above schools I mentioned?

   Yes Morquendi,I would like to know the adresses you mentioned and a list of all the schools within 15-20 minutes walking distance radius.

5. 

   Wow… now that was a kick in face. I can’t wait to see how Mörquendi walks away from this. Hmm…. or will he give up this time as well?

6. 

   Indi, to make one thing clear before you go overboard with the lynching talk. I for one, agree in principle with the concept of privatization and private universities. What I don’t agree with is the total withdrawal of state funds from education, degree level or otherwise. I was at some pains to make that distinction understood by that rabid-capitalist -with-an-axe-to-grind Chanuka, but unfortunately, it appears that reading comprehension wasn’t his strong suit. State universities and state funding for education has a role to play in development. Not everything that’s beneficial for the economy or the country is justifiable in terms of rupee/cent payoffs tomorrow. It is my belief that education is one such area. Rupee/cent justifications in the short term are exactly what we’d get if we switched to a wholly market driven education system.

   On your statistics, yes I think that’s consistent with what we all (should) know. But there are two separate issues.

   One is quality and value for money for the State and taxpayer money. How can people be given a sufficiently “good” (for whatever definition; be it job prospects or employability or well rounded education) degree education for the monies which are expended on them ? Does more money being available solve this ? Does becoming a fee levying institute solve this ? I don’t think so. There are many many fly by night degree mills out there which offer substandard education and churn out “Computing” graduates who are well qualified for a life of writing letters with Word 7.0 but not much else. People still go to those places in droves, right ? Equally so, will offering more money to the campus employees remove the deep seated apathy ? I can claim to be an insider and I can say with some confidence that it won’t matter a damn. The problem with evaluating performance in education is intangibles, isn’t it ? One man’s sucky lecturer is another’s hands off research oriented superstar. How would you judge ? Besides, most lecturers have tenure, anyway.

   The other is how we ensure an equitable system of entry into university. Or at the very least, a system which doesn’t overly emphasise capability to pay over ability. A state funded system with free education is one way. It works. It doesn’t educate as many people as we’d like, but it does educate 13% total of people excluding the contemptible elite. For a country with limited funds and budgets, 13% isn’t marvellous, but it’s a start. It’s what we have right now. I don’t see a reason to dismantle that in it’s entirety for the fond illusion that this privatization enmasse will give our economy a kick in the rear.

   I like private campuses because they are open to (most) people who have the capability to pay. We ALREADY have a private university system right the hell now. At a rough estimate, private degree awarding institutes pass out 300+ graduates annually. We don’t need anything more there except better regulation to prevent the con artists.

   Since we’re talking pie-in-the-sky ideas, what I’d like to see is a shift from the state pouring funds into universities. Instead, we should offer scholarships to people. To individuals. A graded scheme, perhaps ? The higher your marks, the more the state offers you. Putting aside the fact that now state campuses would actually have an incentive to take in more students if they possibly could (because it affects the amount of money they have to play with.. their budgets inflate accordingly); we ‘d also introduce a culture of personal responsibility in a student. Yes, they are still getting free education. Free regardless of how much money they have or where they come from or who their parents are… but it’s for them, it’s not free education for a herd of students, some of whom haven’t the slightest interest in being in a campus and some of whom see it only as a time to indulge in poster waving and slogan shouting.

   Chandare, good example, btw. Just one small nitpick with it. The bigger name schools have quotas, one such being “proximity to school area”. I think the regulations say 2-3 miles or something like that. Richmond and the bigger schools may not always be able to take in everyone for that reason.

7. 

   Indi, What’s the big use of arguing with the same group of idiots? I have answered all their questions but they could not answer just four questions I asked them. They just go on and on saying the same thing again and again in different language. No sense of Economics. No sense of Mathematics. No sense of statistics. No sense of reality. No sense of logic. No brains. Just hearts. Just emotions hanging in the air! When they run out of arguments they shift to personal attacks. (Possibly, in their replies to this they may do it again and will shout to us “Don’t make this personal!”) Typical JVP. Typical products of this ‘pin education’ system of ours! Now I have one more reason why I don’t support the ‘pin education’ system. It produces a group of people who think they are educated, but do not even have the sense of street hawkers.

8. 

   Can I send it to chandare@gmail.com?

   Indi, instead of quoting endlessly from WB documents, and rewording their arguments as your own, why don’t you just reproduce them as is and skip the trouble? Can we hear something original from you please? At least Chadare has an original idea.

   Indi I don’t even know if you’ve heard about any of the alternatives to the WB’s proposal. There was once a suggestion made that went like this:

   Let’s say we closed down a certain number of schools with less than a certain number of students. But what if we don’t close those schools down completely? What if we keep their primary and secndary sections open? So then we have a smal school where they teach stuff upto…say grade 5. What would happen if we closed down the primary sections in all the ‘big’ schools in the urban and suburban areas? Keep them running, but only…say grade 5 and above. And then that’s going to make even the rich parents who want to send their child to a ‘big’ school dump their child in the small local school for the first few years.

   A major reason that the big schools in Colombo are relatively better off than most is because the urban rich crowd (people from as far away as Kalutara, like Indi said, or maybe even further) who send their children there can afford to pump some money into the school regularly. Like when the kid comes home with a till or one of those little raffle ticket books.

   So once these kids are forced to go to the local school for the first few years then some of this money is going to be pumped by the parent into the local school, which will lead to a certain amount of development in school which is not funded by the Government. If a school has enough rich parents then the Government just has to pay the teachers salaries. All else is taken care of by the parents.

   Indi, I don’t expect you to understand how kids with rich parents help schools, and what a key element they are in a school’s development in Sri Lanka. If you’d’ve been through the mill here you’d know what I’m talking about.

   Now this was one of the alternatives put forward back then. But the Ministry of Education, foreseeing a lot of WB money not coming their way, decided to squish all alternative ideas and do what the WB had paid them to do. There was no public debate about the proposed reforms. The public didn’t even know what happened to their schools. The WB doesn’t like public participation in the decision making process?

   But let’s also look at who’s going to get hurt if a system like the one that was suggested above is implemented. The urban rich. They are not going to be able to send their kids to the primary sections in the big schools because those primary sections will be closed down. But no one wants to hurt the rich…do we? So let’s just close down a lot of the poorest schools in rural areas and then no rich people will be hurt.

   Indi talks about rationalization, but it’s always the poor who have to bite the bullet. That’s not rationalization Indi, that’s oppression.

9. 

   Indi, instead of quoting endlessly from WB documents, and rewording their arguments as your own, why don’t you just reproduce them as is and skip the trouble?

   Cause they’re boring and don’t use cuss words. Also, somethings like, say, building a car or formulating national educational policy won’t really benefit from my ‘original’ opinion. I’m not saying people shouldn’t offer original ideas, cause that’s interesting. I just personally don’t feel qualified to go into the depth of that report. What I’m trying to do is sell a sound idea, not reinvent the wheel.

   What if we keep their primary and secndary sections open? So then we have a small school where they teach stuff upto…say grade 5. What would happen if we closed down the primary sections in all the ‘big’ schools in the urban and suburban areas? Keep them running, but only…say grade 5 and above. And then that’s going to make even the rich parents who want to send their child to a ‘big’ school dump their child in the small local school for the first few years.

   That’s an interesting idea. The only issue is that it takes away choice and freedom from people. That solution has pretty significant administrative overhead and it disrupts a lot of lives, so it’s questionable wheter GOSL is capable of implementing a policy of, essentially, returning children to the villages. The trend towards urbanization is a grass-roots one, driven by millions of individual decisions, but I guess you could fight it.

   Indi, I don’t expect you to understand how kids with rich parents help schools, and what a key element they are in a school’s development in Sri Lanka. If you’d’ve been through the mill here you’d know what I’m talking about.

   hard concept… brain… hurt… You don’t need to patronize or threaten me, but I guess it’s an easy substitute for reason.

   Indi talks about rationalization, but it’s always the poor who have to bite the bullet. That’s not rationalization Indi, that’s oppression

   No, wait, shouting slogans is easier.

10. 

    Leaving aside the pros and cons of urbanization, there are several problems with your argument.

    This has nothing to do with urbanization.

    Do you think children below the age of 12 are going to make individual choices about wanting to live in the big city? ‘Mommy Mommy, I want to go to the BIG school in the BIG city’. That’s daft. And Indi, a lot more of the rich who live in suburban areas would send their kids to local schools if the local schools had the same facilities as the Colombo schools.

    The parents have already made their choices about living inside or outside the big city. That choice has nothing to do with them wanting to send their child to school in the big city. And like I said earlier, I don’t know any 10 year olds who debate living in the city.

    All kids who live within Colombo city limits can be accomodated if one or two of the Primary sections are left running. As for kids from all the suburban areas and places as far off as Kalutara, they could go to the local primary school. When they grow up they can make their own decisions about living in the city.

    And now for something interesting…

    “The only issue is that it takes away choice and freedom from people.”

    And closing down schools, which is what you and the WB suggest, gives people more choices? Please explain. I really have to hear this one explained.

    But let’s look at the choice the suggestion takes away. It doesn’t offer the rich urban crowd and opportunity to educate their children in a BIG school till they get out of the primary. So when I say ‘What about closing down some of the Primary sections in the BIG schools to force those kids to go to the local schools?’, Indi yells FOUL!. So let me get this straight…it’s ok to take away choices from the poor but it’s not OK to take away choices from the rich? Say, isn’t that exactly what our friendly neighborhood (pardon me) asshole Chanuka says?

    Moving on…

    “That solution has pretty significant administrative overhead and it disrupts a lot of lives,”

    What, pray are these significant administrative overheads? Again, explain. You fail to understand. I am FOR closing down some schools. But not the same schools the WB and you want to close down. Shutting down the Primary sections of the bigger urban schools is NOT going increase the administrative overhead. In fact, it may actually reduce the overhead.

    And as for disrupting lives. If you close down rural schools you disrupt the lives of the rural poor. Which according to you is ok. But if we were to close down the Primary sections in some of the Colombo schools and disrupt the lives of some of the urban rich then that’s wrong.

    But there’s one thing on which I agree with you 100%

    “formulating national educational policy won’t really benefit from my ‘original’ opinion”

    It won’t. Because you have no clue about the education system in Sri Lanka. If you didn’t have those WB books lying around the house this argument would most certainly not have gone on for this long. And do you want to know who else, for the same reason as you, has no clue about the education system in Sri Lanka? The World Bank.

11. 

    I’m writing a longer response to your personal attack on me, but as to choice,

    did you ever wonder why the rural schools are losing students? It’s because parents choose to send their kids to the more prestigious urban schools. You can force them to stop, but that’s going against the flow of their free choice.

12. 

    Oh wait, you’re accusing me of launching a personal attack on you? Show me where exactly in the comments I have left here I have personally atacked you.

    Is this your excuse for the nasty one you wrote about me?

13. 

    Well, in your most recent comment you elaborate on your initial threat,

    And Indi, why I asked you not to get personal is because you have a lot of skeletons in your closet that you might not even know about.

    If that isn’t a personal attack then I don’t know what is. Happy digging.

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