Anne Henry reporting
in the Sinhala owned Sri Lanka Daily Mirror on November 18, 2003
A report released by UNICEF last week on catch-up education for
children in the North and East makes for uncomfortable reading.
While the Board of Investment trumpets Sri Lanka�s achievements in
�lead[ing] the South Asian region... with its high literacy rate of
91% placing it way ahead of other South Asian nations & on a par
with those of south east Asia�, in some areas of the Vanni only 75%
of school-age children are actually attending school at all.
Twenty years of conflict has created a chasm dividing Sri Lanka�s
literate masses from a significant minority whose access to basic
education is radically limited. The North & East Provincial Ministry
of Education estimates that there are nearly 94,000 children in the
area not enrolled in school, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the
physical destruction of schools has made it impossible for education
to continue as normal. Nearly a quarter of the schools in these
areas have been damaged or destroyed by bombing, or as a result of
being commandeered by the military. In Mannar, over 85% of schools
were damaged in the conflict, and in Jaffna two-thirds of the
schools have had to move to different locations. With children
trying to learn in the rubble, surrounded by bullet holes, not sure
if classes will be held from one day to the next, it is not
surprising that low morale is one of the factors blamed for the high
drop-out rate.
This lack of morale has also spread to the
teachers. The government�s push to recruit 50,000 new teachers
between 1989 and 1994 was initially successful, but large class
sizes, isolation and lack of training have led to high levels of
teacher absenteeism. Their places are filled by volunteer teachers
who may only have had a few days� training.
The school census of 2000 reported that only 27% of teachers,
island-wide had passed their GCE O-levels, and only 28% had been to
university. Where poorly trained teachers are also taking on the
burden of addressing the psychological issues of the children, the
problem of teacher shortage becomes even more acute. A recent survey
estimated that as many as a quarter of children in the Vanni Region
suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders.
Despite
the cease-fire
, many children are still living their daily lives in a kind of
permanent emergency situation.
Tens of thousands of
families have been displaced as a result of the conflict, and many
have yet to find a permanent home. There are still 8,000 people
living in government welfare centres in Vavuniya alone, and
conditions are primitive. With a tarpaulin for a roof and a wood
fire for cooking, for many of these families the priority is getting
enough food for their children to eat, rather than getting them to
school. And poverty is still a problem for families with homes of
their own. Children who have lost one or both parents in the
conflict work in garment factories, sell fruit, or collect bottles
or iron in order to bring in money following the loss of a
bread-winning parent.
However, as Suranimal Rajapaksa,
Minister of School Education, remarked in a message to the UNICEF
symposium, Sri Lanka as a country has always prized education, and
the government �accepts it is vital�. Historically, catch-up
education (CUE) has been implemented by a number of agencies working
independently of each other - including UNICEF, GTZ, Save the
Children and the International Labour Organization - providing
evening classes, weekend classes, temporary schools and non-formal
education. Unsurprisingly, the key recommendation of the report is
that the state should co-ordinate the activity of all these
disparate agencies, in order to ensure resources are used to maximum
effect. State intervention would also ensure that there is adequate,
standardised teacher training.
The report also revealed that
there was no clear interpretation of the purpose of catch-up
education. Pupils in CUE classes have included low achievers,
children without schools near their homes, even children requiring
coaches for their GCE O-levels. The risk is that CUE classes become
a catch-all, although they are provided solely as a temporary
measure and are reliant on the support of international aid agencies
- UNICEF envisages phasing out CUE in 2006. Sustainability can only
be ensured by reintegrating children back into normal schools.
The damage done to their schools and homes, as well as to the
children�s psyches, is immense, and last week�s report is just the
first step in the massive efforts needed to restore normality to
these areas. Ms Kamala Peiris, a consultant author of the report,
summed it up best. Describing the huge responsibility we all have
towards the children affected by the conflict, she concluded her
remarks by quoting Robert Frost:
�The woods are lovely, dark
and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I
sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.�
