Speech at Rotary Club of Colombo at the G.O.H. on March 21, 1957. This was published in the Times of Ceylon of Monday, April 1, 1957
“A great economic revolution is sweeping across the world and a new climate of thought and feeling is being created. Characteristic of it, especially in the new nations of Asia and Africa, is a naive and optimistic faith in the power of education. Many believe that in the societies of tomorrow the school will take the dominating place occupied in mediaeval cities by the cathedral : the centre and focus of the aspirations of the community, the agency through which the level of life is raised and ennobled. All this is no new thing. From Plato onwards, philosophers have given expression to such hopes. For centuries statesmen have paid at least lip service to the same ideals. But now the great masses of the people have been fired by them and they have learned to see in the school an instrument by which their children may be given a chance to reach new heights….. In the West, the parties which represent the interests of organized workers have pressed continuously for easier access to secondary schools and universities, thereby affirming their belief that more education for all is a good thing. In Asia and Africa, nations having attained full political independence are turning to the next part of their historic task : the achievement of full social and economic independence. Their leaders have well understood that the condition for this is the mobilization not only of natural but of human resources, and that schools can be used to this end". The Editors of The Year Book of Education, 1954.
There are several problems in the sphere of Education which Ceylon shares in common with many countries of the World; to cite a few examples :- a richer content for primary education, secondary education for all with its corollary of parity of esteem for the different types of schools, new techniques in the spheres of both teaching and learning, raising of the school leaving age, the transformation of the public school in the English sense of the term to the public school in the American sense, planned provision of opportunities for the gifted child and the emphasis on pupils’ ability to profit rather than on their ability to pay. The origin of all these problems could be traced to the recently expanded meaning of education and to the increasing popularity and wider recognition of the theory of ‘social individuality’. The solutions, however, cannot be the same though the problems are common, for it has been rightly stated, that “the educational ideal of a period and of a people in the richness and reality of its content is historically conditioned and formed.” Ceylon may be benefitted by the experiences of industrialized countries but cannot yet copy their examples wholesale. Ceylon may envy those countries where one and the same language does serve adequately the purposes of cultural development as well as of material advancement. Ceylon cannot however emulate them without the repudiation of her own precious heritage of cultural diversity and richness. While we may appreciate other cultures we cannot abandon ours. Though methods and measures may vary, there are objectives and goals which Ceylon does pursue in the invigorating company of several free societies in other parts of the World, all of them dedicated to the freedoms which are inherent in the ideals of liberty, equality (or justice) and fraternity (or human dignity). These have been categorized by Dr. Elton Trueblood into the Six Positive Freedoms as follows :- the first freedom is the freedom to learn, the second is the freedom to debate, the third is the freedom to worship, the fourth is the freedom to work, the fifth is the freedom to live, and the sixth is the freedom to serve. A Free Society is also a Democratic Society and no form of society is so false as a democracy without education. Dr. Trueblood has listed the freedom to learn as the first of the Six Positive Freedom for “it comes so near to being absolute in its value… all persons regardless of sex or financial situation should be free to learn as much as they can profitably assimilate. This conception leads directly to the provision of educational opportunities for all, up to the level of ability… Since the whole society gains by better achievement on the part of its citizens, the financial responsibility for the advancement of learning ought not to be placed solely upon the individual or his family. The limitation of advanced learning to those in easy financial circumstances is manifestly absurd, because the child of the poor family may be far more able to absorb learning than is the child of the rich family… Freedom to learn is concerned not merely with the number who learn, but also with the quality and mood of the learning….. whether the learning is really open and untrammelled. Does the citizen in his learning have the privilege of following the evidence wherever it leads, or must he see to it that his conclusions are in line with some preconceived conception of what the truth is?” Thus a democratic society should simultaneously successfully pursue the ideals of liberty and equality not merely in the spheres of economics and politics but also of education.
The concept of equality in education does not imply the equality of intelligence at birth but connotes the equality of opportunity or justice. In the words of Tawney, “differences of individual endowment are a biological phenomenon. Contrasts of environment and inherited wealth and educational opportunity and economic security, with the whole and business of snobbery and servility which such contrasts produce are the creation not of nature but of social convention… whatever view may be taken, however, of the familiar antithesis between nature and nurture, the existence of a wide margin between potentialities and attainments is a fact of experience which cannot seriously be disputed. If heredity determines that the full stature of some men shall be less than that of others, environment decides whether they shall attain that stature, or fall below it. To argue that, because educable capacity is different in each and limited in all, therefore its development is unimportant, is as superficial as to depreciate the significance of agricultural technique on the ground that no skill will raise more than meagre crops on land unsuited to them. The business of education is to narrow that margin between the possible and the actual, by assisting the first to become the second. The business of a public educational system is to ensure that such assistance, of the kind and for the period required, is available for all, not confined to those whose parents can buy it for them in the open market.”
It is in pursuance of this democratic ideal of equality that the free scheme of education was inaugurated by the State in Ceylon. It is true that the free scheme by itself cannot ensure good education. It is also equally true that there cannot be good education without the free scheme. Whatever shortcomings there might have been in the execution of the policy, the policy itself was sound. A conscious effort was thereafter made to diminish the disparities between the “clothed” and the “trousered.” Besides English education and English Schools were no longer to be the monopoly of fee paying parents. Schools which had modelled themselves on the English Public School and specialized in a type of secondary education which connoted privilege and prestige were called upon to make secondary education comprehensive, diversified and integrated and to place no restrictions in regard to the admission of pupils on grounds of financial means or social status. The schools were thus required “to burn what they had adored and to adore what they had burned.”
The Central School is an important feature of the new era. It was born of the conviction that “every child whose talents are left undiscovered or undeveloped by the educational system represents a heavy loss to the community and an impoverishment of individual life” and that it was the duty of the State to pursue together two goals – “to give scope to ability and raise the average.”
The gifted child has thus been accorded an important place with the State assuming a special responsibility. The provision that obtains in the City of New York in this regard has useful lessons for us. In New York there has been developed alongside of the area Senior High Schools a system of specialized Senior High Schools. “Although a certain degree of specialisation is possible within the general or neighborhood (or comprehensive) high school, this degree is necessarily limited, and therefore regarded by many as inadequate. On the other hand the specialised school is designed throughout admission, faculty, curriculum, building and equipment – for only a segment of the boys and girls of high school age.. The neighborhood high school must admit as a student every adolescent who is qualified to begin any kind of high school education. The specialised school admits only those students who fall into that segment of the general adolescent population which the school is designed to serve. In other words the neighbourhood school does not have the authority to refuse admission to any student who has an elementary or junior high school diploma and who lives in the district; the specialised school not only has the authority, but also the obligation to refuse admission to any student who does not fall within the group the school is designed to serve.. it is obvious that in communities large enough to support only one high school, there can be no specialised school…. the standard deviation of the student body of the specialised high school should be smaller than that of the general high school…… In summary, then the greatest problem facing American education for adolescents is that of fitting education to the wide variation of abilities and needs found in any unselected group of adolescents. While it is true that the education of the past concentrated too much upon the development of the intellect, the mastery of skills and areas of knowledge, and neglected the development of the various “non-intellectual” factors of the child’s personality, the present movement away from the intellectual may go much too far. The training of the mind is not the whole of education, but it is certainly more than a contemptuous part of it.. but there is grave doubt that the general or comprehensive high school will be able to solve this problem… Though it houses an atmosphere of good feeling.. and has accomplished a work of assimilation (Americanization)… amazingly well yet it has failed to provide a curriculum which is within the academic competence of the lower half of the generality of adolescents.. student selection on he basis of interest, ability, and terminal aims creates both a favourable learning situation and a democratically desirable social environment… the specialised school provides many students with a purpose which, for them, the general high school lacks… and makes a better integration of the curriculum possible… the school system which does not provide for differentiation in a highly differentiated society is an anomaly.”
The most famous of these specialized schools is the Bronx High School of Science. Here in addition to the teaching of the basic subjects normal to any senior high school, special attention is paid to science. Admission to the Bronx High School of Science is restricted to those who have shown competence and special aptitude for science at a highly competitive entrance examination. The City of New York has a population very near that of Ceylon and has many similarities in respect of the structure of its educational administration. The possibilities of adapting in Ceylon the New York system of specialised schools are worthy of earnest consideration by the Government for national interest demands that Ceylon should not be starved of leadership by the neglect of the country’s gifted boys and girls. On account the wide disparity in area between New York and Ceylon the future specialized schools of Ceylon will have to be boarding schools sited in areas selected not for their remoteness but for the conditions that are conducive to study and play.
These Central Schools – there are nearly 56 of them now in Ceylon – were started with good intentions but were badly located in many cases. Their healthy development was impeded from the start by their being made to serve the dual purpose of an area senior school as well as of a specialized school. There was thus confusion as to whether they were to concentrate on the specially talented or whether they were merely to provide for the rural children the kind of English education already available in the urban areas. Some of these Central Schools were allowed no scope for development on account of the continued and undisturbed existence in their close proximity of older Government schools of senior status. The system of scholarships awarded on the results of the 5th Std. Examination was valid when Swabhasa medium was not continued into the junior school; but with the introduction of the Swabhasa medium in the junior secondary classes of the so called English schools, the scholarship system should have been reviewed and recast. This was, however, not done. When the Education (Amendment) Act of 1951 committed the Government unequivocally to compulsory education up to Standard 8 and to a Selective Test at that stage, the scholarship system should have been modified. This modification has not taken place yet. The stage has thus been reached when an early and comprehensive review should be undertaken by the Government of the policy hitherto followed in respect of the Central Schools.
Equality in education naturally implies that every child endowed with the ability to profit has the right to education and should not be deprived of this right because of the poverty of the parent or similar circumstances extraneous to the ability of the child e.g. wide disparities obtaining between urban and rural areas in the provision of educational facilities or between the so called vernacular schools and the so called English schools. The principle of equality is certainly violated when some schools are compelled to tolerate classes that are over-crowded and understaffed or when some areas have no schools at all despite the statutory provision of compulsory education.
It is hardly necessary to stress that Ceylon has not attained the kind of equality that is so essential in the present stage of the Country’s development. This should be no means tempt Ceylon to adopt a policy of levelling down in preference to one of levelling up. There should be no deterioration of educational standards on account of either financial niggardliness or an attitude of indecisiveness. What is essentially and urgently needed is a planned policy based on ascertained facts and figures with set targets and conceived with the avowed object of achieving equality without sacrifice of quality. Very often the question is posed, how much money can the State afford for education? And this question cannot be satisfactorily answered unless the responsibility of the State towards education is vividly apprehended and clearly understood. In the words of Adlai E. Stevenson, “the question is not only, What will an educational programme cost ? The question is even more. What is the cost of not having such a programme ?….. for better education to our children means a better chance to them and fuller education means fuller lives.” Education is wrongly thought of as just one of the many social service activities of the Government. But “education will prove to be, as it has proved elsewhere a most remunerative long range investment which pays its dividends not only in the way of increased material wealth but in the shape of happier, healthier, more social and more enlightened men and women,” for Education alone can create in the present and next generations the ability to understand the complex problems of our Country in its present state of development and equip them with the technique and character to dominate its difficulties. “The greatest wealth of any country is its children. But like minerals hidden in the earth till it is developed that wealth is only potential. To develop that wealth thoroughly requires education in its broadest, richest and fullest measure.”
While the ideal of equality in education has received almost universal assent, the same cannot be said of the ideal of Liberty in Education for the totalitarian systems of Government either repudiate this ideal openly or give such a twist to its meaning as to make it meaningless. Liberty, however, is an essential ingredient in the democratic philosophy of the State and as such is an accepted ideal in our Country. Yet Free Ceylon has not been able to cast away during the last nine years some of the distinguishing features of the administrative set up that characterized Ceylon’s Colonial Period. Thus centralism – an essential feature of colonialism – continues to dominate the educational administration of Ceylon even today despite occasional changes in designations and staff and despite periodical talks of re-organization and decentralization. It has been the experience of nearly all countries that in the educational sphere a centralized administration does not foster liberty, and that liberty is best achieved by the association with the Central Government of Local Authorities and Voluntary Oragnizations.
In view of the Government’s proposal to inaugurate shortly a system of Regional Councils that will co-ordinate the activities of the various Local Authorities that have already been established and also take over some of the duties now performed at the Kachcheris, the time is now opportune to devolve on these Regional Councils and on a few of the Local Authorities some of the educational functions now performed directly by the Central Government.
The Government is already committed to a policy of compulsory and free education up to Standard 8. It should therefore be possible for the Government to entrust the management of the Government Primary and Junior Schools to these Regional Councils on terms similar to those envisaged in the Education Ordinance of 1938. The experience that has been accumulated in England since the passing of its Education Act of 1944 would prove of immeasurable value. This Act of 1944 sought to create and has succeeded in creating “a synthesis between order and liberty, local initiative and national direction, voluntary agencies and the State, and the private life of the school and the public life of the neighbourhood.” The series of Education Acts of England culminating in the Act of 1944 is “the story of a progressive partnership between the Central Department, the Local Education Authorities, and the Teachers. To build a single, but not uniform system out of many diverse elements; to widen educational opportunity and at the same time to raise standards; to knit the educational system more closely into the life of an increasingly democratic and industrialised community.” The inadequate financial resources of the Local Authorities in Ceylon do not provide a serious objection to the kind of decentralization suggested for it is the practice in all progressive countries that the Local Authorities are not expected to finance eduction entirely from their rates but are provided with adequate grants having greater regard to the needs of the area than its mere taxable capacity. Such a policy of decentralisation would not merely diminish the central and remote control that is now exercised from Colombo but also will enable the parents concerned to have a voice in the shaping of their children’s schools. Besides, the Minister of Education would not be distracted by the purely personal problems of the ever transferable teachers. Nor would he be compelled to dissipate his energy attending to the details of accommodation, staff and equipment of individual schools. Instead he could devote his entire attention to the planning of the school system with set targets that will ensure equality in education in the shortest time possible and without deterioration in educational standards.
It is a sad feature of the administration of Ceylon that the premier Municipal Council of Colombo has so far no direct responsibility for even the primary education of the City’s children many of whom are growing unschooled and are thus becoming stunted citizens for want of an adequate number of schools in the city.
So far my remarks have been confined to the Government Schools ……one of the three categories, the other two being – the Assisted Schools and the Unaided Schools. In a democratic society the Unaided School has a special and by no means unimportant role to play. It caters for the needs of the parents who do not desire to avail themselves of the free scheme offered by the Government and for the needs of the children eliminated either through a Selective Test or by age requirements. Some of these schools enjoy greater freedom for experimentation and possess larger resources for the provision of special facilities and amenities. With regard to the Assisted Schools, there was a time in our recent history – during the years 1945 to 1951 – when their future was uncertain and their status unspecified. The White Paper of 1950 and the Education (Amendment) Act of 1951 made it clear that Assisted Schools were co-partners with the State in the important task of erecting an educational structure strong and satisfactory to cope with the new demands of the Country’s cultural revival and national development.
In these Assisted Schools, traditions of immeasurable value to the country have grown up – traditions of piety and learning as well as of discipline and devotion, traditions which cannot be created overnight or produced to order but are plants of slow growth that must be tended with love and labour. To the growth of these traditions have gone the self sacrificing instincts and endeavours of several generations of Ceylonese and it is essential in the best interest of the Country that these traditions are preserved, protected and promoted. The two World Wars with the possibilities ever presence of a Third World War have convinced us that the methods of discussion and discovery bring us no peace within or without unless we do intently pursue in addition the method of devotion and that only through worship can knowledge and intelligence lead us to wisdom and virtue. While religious instruction can and should be imparted in Government schools and this principle has been accepted in Section 4 of the Education (Amendment) Ordinance of 1947, religious education cannot thrive so well as in those Assisted Schools founded with the avowed purpose of ensuring that the young grow up steeped in their own faith and in an atmosphere conducive to the full development of their personality in its spiritual aspect.
The question of the future status of these Assisted schools and the conditions under which they should be established or allowed to continue has been recently raised; and unless this problem is discussed dispassionately and in time there is the danger of decisions being canvassed in the heat of political passion and on the eve of a General Election. And those of us who are well acquainted with the great contributions that have been made by the Assisted Schools must heed the criticisms that are being levelled against them in order that the Assisted School system may be preserved shorn of the evils complained of and proved.