Personal Perspective: Trying to innovate - 11 May 2003

'Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun. (Browning)'

It is always a sorry business, realizing how old one is. In my case the problem has been exacerbated by also having been a sort of ‘enfant terrible’ for several years, advocating radical reforms when older and wiser people recommend letting sleeping dogs lie.

Indeed my sadness about Wickrama Weerasooria began when, at what was supposed to be the dynamic workshop on educational reform organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, he laid his hand on my shoulder in avuncular fashion. ‘Don’t try to change what you can’t,’ he said lugubriously, adding that this was what he had advised his wife too. I told him that I thought he at least would try, but he shook his head sadly. But I think it was sadder for me, because I had earlier thought that he, with all his experience, cared deeply about reform. I could not understand why he had wanted these positions, abandoning a wonderful career in Australia, if he didn’t think he could make a difference where it mattered.

But, alas, experience in this country seems to mean accepting that nothing will change. I was too fast, they told me, when I had tried to change things at S Thomas. That the changes were for the better had been generally recognized, but when I found out that money was missing, the music had to stop. Of course I achieved some good I think, in that accountability was restored, and they actually found a reasonably young man to be Warden, who made things better than they had been - but the conceptual changes that were required never happened.

What was needed was the twinning of power with responsibility, the idea above all that a job required aims and objectives and measures to test effectiveness. But instead of these amateur bungling continued, with exaggerated respect for positions that then burst out in an episcopal version of bloody revolution, when the Bishop’s nominee for Warden was challenged in the courts. Of course I steered clear of the controversies in those days, never venturing beyond anodyne remarks to the effect that I thought Neville had done a pretty decent job, the premises were clean, discipline was reasonable and Thomians were once more getting into university in appreciable numbers.

But the sheer waste of time and energy and money as the Bishop tried - I’m sure perfectly sincerely, but with no sense of accountability - to impose his nominee, the long lacuna when Neville went and the place stagnated for a couple of years, all made me despair about the crying absence of professionalism in the field. Now, of course, with David Ponniah in the saddle, one can actually feel immensely enthusiastic. But so many of his ideas remind me of what I had contemplated 20 years ago, that I can only sigh at the lost opportunities for more than a generation.

But the man is tactful, as I never could be, and I am sure will do a great job of building up a team that will take things further yet. But he certainly needs to, in the strange moribundity that has affected private education in this country. In a sense it is like our private business sector, which may be better than the government sector, but is not a patch on the private sector in India or Malaysia or Singapore.

How sad the situation was with regard to education came home to me when I was at the Indian High Commission in Kandy recently, to collect a consignment of Hindi books which they were kindly donating to our university. While waiting for the books to be counted and entered in a list, I looked through a catalogue of private schools in India, and was astonished to find hundreds, scattered all over every state. The famous ones of course I knew about, and had indeed been delighted to see, visiting one a few years back, how closely they approximated still to the public school ideal, unlike our own sad hangovers where the boys get so little of what their fees should entitle them to. But the different layers, the exams they prepare students for, the extras that were available, all made me reflect on how sad our own situation was, with the private schools also strait jacketed within the government system.

David of course is racing ahead in trying to introduce English medium and more interesting texts all through his school, but he has to contend first with a Bishop who is slightly old fashioned in his approach, and second with a Ministry that has not yet worked out how assessments will be made of those studying in English. Meanwhile the Parent Teacher Association at Bishop’s seems to have a Principal who refuses to believe that English medium textbooks have been prepared with the sanction of the Ministry. Perhaps such disbelief keeps the Bishop happy, but it does nothing for the children.

But this diffidence, and the endless series of crises that seem to affect our private schools is symptomatic I believe of the larger problem, namely the absence of diversity in our society. These schools do not need to strive for excellence, because without any effort they seem far superior to most others. So the professionalism that is needed, for teachers as well as administrators, remains on a par with what we have elsewhere, and it is only occasionally, and as a matter of chance, that something much better than the ordinary turns up - only to be subject to all sorts of criticism by those who prefer the ordinary.

The Catholic schools I think do somewhat better, because their teachers and administrators are trained from the start for the roles they are destined to occupy. They have at Archbishop’s House in Colombo someone in charge of their schools, and he works at it, instead of simply dabbling in education occasionally. And of course they can draw on the experience of Catholic schools in other countries. Certainly their response to the introduction of English medium was much more coherent than the more prestigious private schools displayed.

In that respect it would make so much sense for there to be an organization of private schools, which would also work out how they could, apart from improving the service they offer to their students, contribute to the state sector too. Targeted scholarships, a programme of internships for bright students to teach English for a few months in rural areas after their Advanced Levels, a system of teacher exchanges, could all be introduced, and would benefit donors as well as recipients.

The International Schools have some sort of association at present, but that too could move further, and perhaps work together with the National Private Schools, to promote the idea of excellence that can be shared. But all this requires the sort of vision that has been blocked in this country for the last 20 years. The hole and corner way in which International Schools began, with attempts by the Ministry to prosecute them, the strange relationship of private schools to the state system, the failure to clarify matters through an act that lays down the basic rights of all children while indicating the parameters within which different types of institution can function - all this suggests that progress on the lines I have envisaged for so long will never occur.

And that is why I regret so much the 20 years that have passed, since I first realized how much there was to do - or rather, how much could be done if only people and parents were freed to do what was best for their children. With the critical mass of those able to contribute so much smaller now than it used to be, I fear the opportunity has passed for ever.