• Schools can foster peace building

• Need to address the gaps in N-E education

Background

Besides the inherent political frustrations of the Tamil people in the North and East, many point to the lack of substantial economic opportunity and prosperity felt by the people as one of the key reasons for the LTTE being able to garner such grass roots support in these regions in the past. Missing quality education in the rural youth and missing job opportunities among educated urban youth was surely a contributing factor to this, and helped Tamil militancy gather a force of frustrated youth.

Schools can foster peace-building

Fostering peace and harmony among the impressionable youth of the North and East is now becoming of increased importance. This young generation can champion reconciliation, tolerance and integration among the various communities. Given this, the importance of more interaction at the school level through mixed medium schools and stronger English education cannot be stressed upon enough. English has the unique power of bringing youth of different ethnicities together, on a common platform to communicate and interact with one another.

Just as an indication of the significant Sinhala-speaking population in the East and the need to better integrate them – the Eastern Province has as many Grade 1 Sinhala medium admissions as the Western Province has Grade 1 Tamil medium admissions.

Given the diverse mix of ethnicities in the East (particularly in Ampara and Trincomalee), it is surprising that there is only 1 Sinhala and Tamil mixed medium school in the entire Eastern province. However, there are some features that are encouraging to peace building – 40 schools in Northern Province have Sinhala & English (the highest in the country), and the Eastern Province has the second highest.

In districts like Ampara and Trinco where there are a high percentage of Sinhala people living along side Muslims and Tamils, promoting English as a division-breaker is vital. So an area to focus on is the low number of Sinhala & English mixed medium schools (6) in the East. Also, while promoting English, it may also be important to promote more interaction through Sinhala and Tamil students being in the same school, i.e. through bilingual schools. However, there is only 1 Sinhala & Tamil mixed medium school in all of the N-E, in Trincomalee.

Following the defeat of the LTTE, a new era has been ushered in for the youth in the North and East. They deserve to have a clear shot at good education and economic opportunity, equal to the rest of the country. However, some key gaps in N-E education need to be addressed soon, if this is to be achieved.

Addressing the gaps – 1. More secondary and higher education opportunities

However, looking at the School Census of 2006, the recent available data on Sri Lanka’s status of education, several districts in the North and East turn out a particularly bad report card, even in comparison to the poverty-heavy Uva and Sabaragamuwa Provinces. The East has only just over half the number of Type ‘1AB’ schools as the South; i.e. schools that offer up to A/Ls, including a science stream. Figure 1 indicates the types of schools in each district; Type 3 on the extreme right being schools offering only up to Grade 8. As can be seen, over 60% of schools in Vavuniya, and close to 50% of schools in Batticaloa, Mullativu and N’Eliya have classes only up to Grade 8. In stark comparison, in the Southern districts and in Colombo this is less than 20%. In Vavuniya, Mullativu and Batticaloa less than 20% of schools offer A/L classes (Type 1AB or C).

Figure 1: Fewer N-E schools have O/Ls and A/Ls

Source: Prepared using data from School Census 2006, Statistics Branch, Ministry of Education

It is also important to improve higher education opportunities. Already, the Northern Province had the highest A/L qualification rate of 71%, and the East was at 61%. Both higher than the Western Province (57%) and the Sri Lanka average (60%).

Addressing the gaps – 2. Better primary education coverage

The total number of Grade 1 admissions was lowest in the Northern Province, indicating that many children of the relevant age cohort may not be getting their primary education; owing to various factors like conflict, displacement and abject poverty. Anecdotes indicate that some primary school students in rural parts of Jaffna don’t even have rubber slippers to walk to school in.  However, the East fares much better, with Grade 1 admissions almost as high as the Southern or even North Western Provinces.

Addressing the gaps – 3. More graduate/trained teachers

Students in the North and East are exposed to more untrained teachers per student than other provinces. Students in the Western province are privileged as there is only one untrained teacher per 1,009 students. The Sri Lanka average is around 1 untrained teacher for every 514 students. However, in the North there is one untrained teacher for every 140 students and in the East one untrained teacher for every 235 students. Ampara has the highest number of untrained teachers, and Jaffna and Trincomalee come 2^nd and 3^rd highest. Schools in Killinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya, Mullativu have hardly any graduate teachers.

Eastern Province students have the lowest exposure to graduate teachers – 85 students to every graduate teacher, as opposed to 48 students to every graduate teacher in the Southern and 55 in the Central Province, for example.

Addressing the gaps – 4. Better access to schools

As reported by the Institute of Policy Studies*, districts like Vavuniya and Mullativu have 1 A/L school with Science stream for over 250km², a staggering indication of the gaps in A/L education opportunity there. With such poor access to quality schooling, youth of these areas are bound to be left behind, even while massive investments in economic infrastructure take place; and this could breed discontent and frustration.

Another factor feeding in to education access would naturally be poverty. Having been shackled under years of ruthless terrorism, some areas in the North and East were severely neglected and basic prerequisites to attend school like shoes or slippers, uniforms, good nutritional and health status may be lacking. Now that the war is over, the government has the opportunity to go into these areas and uplift family status so that children can go back to school.

Way forward – Private sector opportunity

The demand for private education in Jaffna is high. Already Jaffna has more than 5 private schools, around the same number as Kalutara and Matara. During the recent Future Minds trade and education fair in Jaffna in December, several leading private educational institutes that went up from Colombo remarked on the overwhelming demand for private degree programmes and technical qualifications that they offered. CIMA is already planning on conducting exams for students there, and Informatics Institute of Technology just set up their first branch there last week.

Some promising young stars are already emerging. A young A/L student of St. Vincents’ Girls’ High School in Batticaloa who I met recently (Anjana Sivagnanarajah, pictured here at her school computer lab) developed a programme for a Microsoft Sri Lanka software skills competition and came 1^st in the Eastern Province and then 3^rd nationally.

Way forward – Knowledge economy in Jaffna

Jaffna has historically had a strong focus and achievement in education. It has the highest number of Tamil & English schools in the entire island, and this is a distinct advantage to businesses wishing to set up there. Particularly after H.E. the President named it the first ‘City of Excellence in English and IT’ this year, the youth are on their way to becoming a knowledge workforce. Jaffna has historically produced a pool of qualified accountants and lawyers. As Sri Lanka looks to become a potential hub for accountancy and legal services offshoring, Jaffna may be well poised to take on this emerging opportunity. Moreover, the peninsula eagerly awaits the arrival of broadband internet, as Dialog and Mobitel have laid down the infrastructure for it already.

Going beyond …

What is needed in the coming years in a post-conflict North and East, is while addressing the gaps in education there to focus strongly on helping the youth catapult themselves to catch up with their counterparts in other regions. Having suffered years of conflict and uncertainty, they are now looking for opportunities to grow and to compete for jobs on a level playing field with the rest of Sri Lanka.

*Education Opportunities for the Poor in Sri Lanka: Assessing Spatial Disparities, HRD Series No.5 November 2008, Institute of Policy Studies

(Note: The author recognises the challenges in education in other provinces too, but the scope of this report was limited to the North and East)

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