Ceylon Today Editorial

Officials must take blame for system failing

17 September 2016
 

There was a story of a former Sri Lankan star footballer taking up employment as a grave digger and an ex-President of the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) getting excited over the story. Destiny came to the rescue of the star footballer to make him a grave digger, professional or not. Here the story is not one of destiny. Whether the man was a moron or not, had the FFSL had a programme made to make ex-professionals live decent lives after their careers, the story might not have come into existence.

Any sportsman after they retire should be able to live comfortably and that is a duty by us, to them. Excuses are not warranted; there should have been an immediate remedy available with the FFSL in the case of this grave digging ex- footballer before he was in trouble, instead of waiting to be offered help. This is not the first such case in the world of sport – in USA a one time Olympic champ Jesse Owens, with four gold medals in 1936, had to go through much hardship to make a living; at the time segregation and not having a system caused this.

These situations occur and the easiest way out of responsibility is to blame the troubled man and not the system. Men may come and men may go but, especially, when they go they should be able to go with dignity. This does not take place when the system has failed. If there is a thing called failure or success it is men that have control over it, and that little push by the system may help one to become somebody.

Leaving alone making one to become somebody aside, the FFSL has been unable to move Sri Lanka's game to be at least recognized in the region. Football has been played in Sri Lanka for over a century, and they have been with FIFA since 1952 and in 1965 under M.M. Hasimdeen won their first international against Pakistan. The game has not progressed enough taking into consideration the football talent in the country that is ready made to take it further in the international. It is not the players alone who can move the game to higher levels, that is the task of responsible and knowledgeable officials not the ones who take over the FFSL to run their own agendas.

There is football played in every nook and corner in the country at a fairly competitive level with tens of thousands of footballers getting involved. There certainly is no dearth of players on football fields. In addition there is football played around the island in schools where many more youngsters come into the game. Over the years, that may be the biggest progress made. Then what is the problem facing the progress of the sport?

When we beat Pakistan in 1965 the national coach was Neville Abeygunawardena who had come back to Sri Lanka after a coaching stint in Germany and had big plans for Sri Lankan football. But meddling officials did not allow him to go ahead and the Abeygunawardena programme could not be implemented. Thereafter, there were many more like Lawrence Fernando, V. Nadarajah and Edward Wickramasuriya who served Sri Lankan football with dedication and Edward Wickramasuriya fought the ugly side of the system that he had full knowledge of and died in a motor accident.

The ones spoken of as coming forward to uplift the football game to another level were people who had played the game of football successfully and had undergone studies in coaching the game. And they were dedicated to their country and the game alike. All their valiant efforts to uplift the game here in Sri Lanka were lost with officials who ran the sport struggling for positions and connections with international figures.

With the recent happenings at FIFA and what those big shots as Blatter and Platini with lots of power had been up to: Today we know much more than we did then, of what made FFSL officials to be more interested in getting connected internationally than in the progress of the game, here. If they did something for the game it was just an eyewash promoting infrastructure but there was nothing done to at least have the game played at a level sustained for so long. It is a pity that we could not play this game and be at least a top Asian team.

Daily News Editorial

Technology for education

17 September 2016

Sri Lanka has gained a respectable position in the rankings of Physical Quality of Life Index thanks to the free education and healthcare systems which all post-independence Governments have continued unabated. However, our education system is still mired in old teaching methods and even some of the syllabuses have not moved forward with the times. Hence the massive mismatch between the requirements of the job market and the education system which emphasizes theoretical subjects as opposed to vocational ones.

Education is not a stagnant field. Education and technology go hand in hand. Most adults lament that today’s children hardly read printed books. They also worry that children are addicted to tablets and smartphones through which the Internet can be accessed. There is no doubt that the Internet (World Wide Web) is a minified strewn with material that can harm the thought process of children. But it is also equally true that the Web is awash with information of a beneficial nature. In other words, the Internet can be an educational as well as entertainment portal that has the potential to enrich young minds. In fact, there is even a word for it – edutainment.

The computer tablet is a rather recent phenomenon – Apple introduced the iPad only in 2010. Today, there are dozens of tablets available in the market from various manufacturers and some models combine the flexibility of a tablet with the usability of a PC with a detachable physical keyboard. Today, even the tablet is being superseded by the phablet – a big screen (typically 5.5 inches or more) smartphone with voice calling capability. These devices have already supplanted the traditional desktop and laptop as the preferred device for browsing the web and a multitude of other tasks such as reading and listening to music. There are also devices such as the Kindle designed exclusively for storing and reading books.

Tablets are also getting cheaper, faster, slimmer and better – the iPad was horrendously expensive, around Rs.100,000, when it came out six years ago. Today, one can buy a good tablet for around Rs.20,000 to 30,000 and some big-screen smartphones are even cheaper. This is an item that is ready for mass-market penetration even in developing countries such as ours. It is also time to adapt this technology to suit our national requirements. It is in this context that one should look at Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Minister Harin Fernando’s timely proposal to provide 10-inch tabs programmed with the entire school syllabus to students above grade nine in schools, instead of textbooks.

It is still not clear whether this matter has been discussed with the Education Ministry, but it can conduct a feasibility study on the proposal. The initial cost will be prohibitive (depending on the cost of the selected tablet model), but if we look past that expense, there will be substantial savings in the future. First, there will be no need to print several bulky textbooks which will save millions of rupees to the Exchequer every year. Second, students too will have far lighter load to carry to and from school – it is no secret that many schoolchildren have back problems due to the heavy bags they are forced to carry. They will still have to take notebooks, but some tablets can record lectures and users can actually write on some of the more expensive models, though it is highly unlikely that such models will be available for classroom use. There are some concerns as well, regarding device charging (should schools be equipped with charging stations?), availability of Wi-Fi, repair/replacement of broken tablets and above all, monitoring of content to prevent children from accessing unsuitable sites if and when the devices are connected to the Internet. However, most tablet makers provide Applications such as Apple’s Classroom App which enable teachers to remotely monitor the students’ screens and take appropriate action.

In the meantime, our educationists and tech experts should learn from the experiences of other developed and developing countries where tablets or other types of computers are already in regular classroom use, along with interactive whiteboards. From Kenya to USA, tablets have invaded classrooms across the world. The first country to provide free computers to all students was a developing country – Uruguay, whose “Plan Ceibal” has become a blueprint for other countries taking the same path. In Asia, Thailand was the first country to introduce tablets to schools. Neigbouring India has a similar programme while Turkey's “Movement to Increase Opportunities and Technology” project is introducing over 10 million tablets to schools.

This promising project will need a lot of fine-tuning to make it a reality due to its massive scope. Training the teachers to teach with tablets in itself will be a challenging task as there is often resistance to change. However, the students will take to them like ducks to water, because the younger generation is already familiar with high tech devices. It will be a perfect match between technology and education if this project can be implemented successfully.

The Island Editorial

Docs get overdose of good governance

17 September 2016

 

Scores of government doctors forcibly occupied the Education Ministry’s auditorium on Wednesday night, demanding schools for their children, only to be thrown out the following morning. The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has condemned the government action and reiterated its position that the children of its members who either return from overseas training or are transferred must be admitted to state-run schools. Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has claimed doctors’ demand is unreasonable and some of them have sought to play tricks on the Education Ministry.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has leapt to Akila’s defence. He is reported to have said via Facebook that his government does not consider any individual more privileged than another; nor does it consider a certain career path more important than another.

All professions, as Bernard Shaw has rightly said, are conspiracies against the laity. Doctors are no exception. So are other professionals.

One cannot but agree with the Premier on that score. However, one wonders why the semiliterate politicians who enter Parliament by unleashing violence, throwing around black money and making promises with no intention of fulfilling them, have been able to place themselves above all others paid with public funds.

It takes public servants decades to receive pensions whereas parliamentarians become eligible to retirement benefits just in five years besides living off the fat of the land at the expense of the public. The present government has scrapped the noncontributory pension scheme for those recruited to the public service while retaining that for lawmakers cum lawbreakers. Most MPs haven’t passed their GCE O/L and are not eligible to join the state service even as sanitary workers, but they draw higher salaries and enjoy better perks than most professionals in the state service such as doctors, engineers, accountants, legal officers, scientists and university dons.

The composition of the present Cabinet is antithetical to the concept of good governance in that some of its members were rejected by the people at the last general election but brought to Parliament through the backdoor aka the National List and made ministers. They are also living in clover at the expense of the public purse. How can the government justify considering these political rejects more important than others?

Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne has met the protesting doctors and undertaken to take up their grievance with the Education Minister with a view to finding a solution. This has given the lie to the government’s claim that the GMOA has made an unreasonable demand. If any doctor has sought admission of his or her child to Royal College on the grounds that he or she has been transferred to the LRH or the NHSL from a Colombo suburb as the Education Minister claims, his or her request must be rejected out of hand, but the genuine grievances of medical officers must be redressed. Education is a right and not a privilege and the state, as well as the government in power, is duty bound to ensure that children’s right to education is respected whether they are the progeny of professionals or the ordinary public.

The UNP-led UNF government had no qualms about groveling before the LTTE terrorists in a bid to work out a negotiated solution. Terrorist leaders were given VVIP treatment at the BIA. They were also allowed to infiltrate all parts of the country on the pretext of doing political work. But, the incumbent government, consisting of most of those who shamelessly appeased terrorists, is riding roughshod over doctors and treating professionals who are not ready to toe its line as terrorists.

The despicable manner in which the protesting doctors were treated on Wednesday night cannot be countenanced on any grounds. It was a supreme irony that the government, which is promoting an Indian-funded ambulance project, was so callous as to try to prevent a National Hospital ambulance from entering the Education Ministry premises to remove a protesting doctor who needed emergency treatment. The Education Minister should have directed one of his officials to meet the irate doctors and persuade them to leave the Isurupaya premises instead of disconnecting electricity and water supplies and, worse, deflating the tyres of doctors’ vehicles. The good doctors got an overdose of good governance!

Members of the GMOA are being harassed in this manner because they did not back the UNP-led coalition at the last two elections and are opposing the government’s efforts to please India by inking the blatantly lop-sided Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), which is inimical to the national interest. The government is all out to tame the GMOA, probably the most powerful trade union in the country, so as to frighten all other unions into submission and bulldoze its way through.

The GMOA may not be everybody’s cup of tea. It has antagonized less powerful trade unions and stands accused of preventing other health workers from winning their rights, as we have argued in this space previously. However, it has taken up the cudgels for the public vis-à-vis efforts by multinationals to exploit them and shaped state policies on tobacco, alcohol, food safety and agrochemicals. It has also shown willingness to soften its stand on other health sector trade unions.

All those who cherish democracy and workers’ rights must circle the wagons in defence of the GMOA while urging it to be more flexible and accommodating to other workers. Sinister attempts being made in some quarters to suppress trade unions must be countered with might and main.