Ceylon Today Editorial

School admissions island-wide epidemic 

20th October 2015

Grade 1 admissions to schools has become an island-wide epidemic, witnessed in the urban areas as well as rural areas and basically anywhere where there are schools that are considered to be popular schools. Thousands of parents are faced with the obstacle of getting their children into big schools that are generally accepted to be popular, apart from the national schools in their own areas.

According to the most recent data released by the Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka has a total of 10,973 government schools, 10, 123 private and special schools. The numbers of pupils in government schools are 4,272,286, while in private and special schools there are 4,077,989. For the year 2014, new admissions to government schools have been reportedly 339,554. Approximately that would be around 400 students per government school. In most of the schools in Colombo and other major city areas, there are not more than five to six classes for each Grade with the number of classes increasing from Grade 6, so that the schools can enrol more students after their scholarship exam. According to the statistics, the number of students per class should be at around 45-50 although that is not the case now.

The number of students in a classroom which was 40 or more than that has now been brought down to a maximum of 35 students in a classroom. This has caused a grave injustice to the parents who intend to admit their child to Grade 1. The step to reduce the number of students per classroom was taken by the Yahapalana Government's Minister of Education Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, who was also the man behind the decision to charge a fee for the renovation of classrooms from students entering Grade 1 at schools.

The main reason behind this was the complaints made by trade unions led by stressed out teachers who slave days and days teaching a maximum of eight periods in eight classrooms which are filled with a minimum of 40 students. That is roughly 320 students per day that a single teacher has to take care of as well as teach a lesson in the curriculum. This is undoubtedly a hard thing to do. However, reducing the number of children, because there is a lack in the work force enthusiasm, is a far cry from better solutions.

More so, the fact that there are parents who prepare bogus documents and succeed in getting admission for their children to schools is a famous secret that each and everyone is aware of. Then there are those who have to go behind people such as ex-principals of the school of their choice, politicians and businessmen who would give a letter of recommendation of the child, intended for the school that has been chosen by the parents. These parents have to then bribe a ceremonious amount of money to that person. In some instances, these spurious recommendation letters are in fact encouraged by those school officials, principals, rectors and wardens.

The children, whose parents are not afraid and desperate enough to get their children where they want, eventually end up doing this while there are those honest police officers who are unable to gather such documents or be privy to such opportunities for their children because they cannot risk violating the law as officers of the State. That would mean that they would put their career as well as their child's future at risk.

The main cause of this issue is the fractionation between popular schools and other schools, an instinctual thought that has become ingrained in the society's mindset. Parents even after several generations still look forward to enrol their children in what they consider to be popular schools, which create a direct impact on the competition among schools. This competition is the ultimate feather that breaks the proverbial camel's back when it comes to the decision of the number of student admissions for schools per year and especially student admissions for Grade 1.

When the parents become desperate, they tend to seek criminal methods such as the methods mentioned above which would allow their children to enter a 'good' school. Those who fail to do this enrol their children in national and whichever school that is available and force them to sit for the Grade Five scholarship examination which is the next best option of entering a recognized school. That itself creates another problem where the parents are forcing the children to attend tuition classes which causes a big mental stress on the child. The Grade Five scholarship examination which was not created with this in mind has now become this abhorrent creation that awaits its turn to swallow up our children whole. And the parents, unknowingly, flock their children in a straight line directly to the monster's mouth.

Therefore, instead of changing the pillow for the headache which was done by reducing the number of student intake per class, the relevant authorities should look for more proactive methods reducing the competition among schools. Removing the Popular School Syndrome from the mindset of the society, this unnecessary competition among schools, the problem of children and parents can be resolved. In order to do this, the government should introduce a proper and general mechanism, regarding student admissions, that is applied for all schools, without any exceptions, that would not differ from school to school.

Otherwise we will only be jeopardizing our own future by creating a generation of sans skills, sans culture and sans intelligence.