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| Sunday, 23 February 2003 |
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Letters |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
Reduce rush for admission to popular schools Recently the Ministry of Education announced the establishment of 50 model primary schools during this year at a cost of Rs. 30 million or so. This programme is to be repeated in the next four years as well. Last year the facilities of about 50 former central schools were upgraded spending a similar amount. The objective of these programmes is said to reduce the massive rush for admission to the so-called popular schools in urban centres. During the last few decades too a number of similar programmes were implemented. Model schools, national schools' etc. were established in different parts of the country. But the rush for admission to popular schools does not seem to diminish. In fact it is increasing at an alarming rate. According to a recent media report 300,000 had applied for admission to 100 popular state schools this year. It also stated that around 1000 small schools had to be closed down last year as they did not have sufficient students. Out of 10,000 state schools 7,000 have less than 200 students whereas some popular schools have over 6,000. We can have some idea of the present status of our state education system when we consider the following; violent forms of ragging, extortions and gang wars are becoming a common occurrence. Inter schools sports events are being replaced by inter school gang war. Gangs of students from a national school invaded a nearby smaller school and attacked its staff and students and damaged the school as well. Gang wars are spilling out from schools to private tuition classes as well. In the course of investigating a violent clash among students (attending private tuition classes in Nugegoda) the police had discovered that around 30,000 students flock to private tuition classes in this town each day during weekends. The situation is likely to be the same in other towns as well. Most of them are from prestigious state schools. Police posts are being established in universities to prevent students from killing each other. It looks as if we might have to establish them in schools and private tuition classes as well in the near future. The number of students applying for university admission has come down this year. Violence in universities is believed to be one reason for this situation. Last year Advanced Level students in the Southern Province staged a public protest campaign against an Education Ministry directive which required them to have 80% attendance to qualify them to sit the examination as school candidates. As a result this percentage was reduced to 50% as a temporary measure. Almost all of them were from popular state schools. This is a clear indication that students are attending private tuition classes even during school hours. It has become a vicious cycle. Teachers don't teach properly because the attendance is poor and anyhow students perform well at the examination through private tuition. Students do not attend classes in their schools because no proper work is being done there. This has led the Schools Development Minister to remark recently that the dedication of the teachers is found only in tuition classes. Parents are well aware of this situation. But they have no alterative which the rich and the influential families have. They have private schools, international schools, overseas schools and the choice of the medium of instruction for their children. The less privileged parents are forced to get their children admitted to popular state schools even by resorting to all types of corrupt practices. It is mainly because of such practices that the general public regard state education sector as the most corrupt. G. Dhamawardhana, I too wish to add to the many complaints that appeared in your journal on the pilfering of valuable mail packets of air-mail and registered letters. I am staying in Ragama and, in posting or handing over the counter my personal mail for delivery, I make use of three post offices. They are the Ragama PO and Welisara/Mahabage Sub-Post Office and when in Colombo the PO at Fort. I have had satisfactory delivery of mail at two of the post offices. When letters are handed over to the counter at the Mahabage (sub) PO I have experienced a loss of my mail packets handed over to them for delivery. On one instance I handed a letter for registration for inland delivery to this post office counter. The letter contained Rs. 500 worth of revenue stamps needed for execution of an important document by a member of my family. The letter reached the addressee without the contents; the stamps and the covering letter. In its place a piece of single-rule note paper usually found in government offices had been substituted. This office functions as a sub-post office and is often closed during the lunch hour. The usual staff are only two counter-clerks and a peon. There appears to be no presence of a graded post-master. As I wished to make a further evaluation of the functions of this sub-PO on January 5,I handed over two ordinary air-mail packets. The postage value of one was Rs. 69 and the other was Rs. 40. I noted that on effacing the stamps with the official rubber stamp the counter person displayed a skilful action. This is the very person to whom I handed over the registered letter referred to above. These two items did not reach their destination. In cancelling the high value stamps this particular counter-clerk very skilfully placed the postal frank without touching the postage stamps and with the left-arm in one stroke swiftly swept the items into a box so that one cannot see if the stamps were actually cancelled. The reason why document with high value stamps do not reach the addressee is because the uncancelled stamps are removed presumably when closed for lunch) and resold and moneys pocketed, and the items thrown away. This has happened to me more than once in case of items handed over at this post office only. Mahabage is a highly populated and busy area and includes the neighbouring Mathumagala, Mabole and Welisara. The present post office is located in a prominent and very convenient location in the Mahabage town at Ragama road junction. I strongly believe this post office must be upgraded and run under supervision of a graded Post Master, who can take responsibility for the acceptance and delivery of mail handed over at the post office. Considering the long period of existence of this office an upgrading is long overdue. Kumar De Zoysa, Always obey the traffic lights that's what we've been taught since infancy. Isn't that what we've had drilled into us from Kindergarten upwards? But if the traffic lights are not working, or worse working sporadically, where does that leave the motorist? On a battleground that's where! Risking your passengers life and your own! Driving on our roads has become akin to hazarding all on a game of Russian roulette! Because when the lights don't work there is chaos and accidents occur especially at busy junctions. All road users face possibly fatal accidents with the ongoing lethargy of those whose priority it is to see the traffic lights work. The Dehiwela junction, with hospital road is a major example. There have been countless accidents and several vehicles have been badly damaged not to mention the passengers. It is always the smaller vehicle which suffers the heavier damage and which is often owner driven whereas large vehicles especially private buses escape lightly. Besides which, the driver not being the owner, is not particularly concerned about any minor damage unless he thinks he can get something out of the hapless driver of the smaller vehicle. The police often do not inspire confidence in the public but having been involved in one of the above type of accidents I must say that the courtesy of the Dehiwela police was extremely refreshing and something I didn't expect. Upon mentioning that the traffic lights work haphazardly or not at all, the high ranking people at the police station said that it was not his province to maintain the traffic lights but, he had reported it and complained about it for the past week but no action had been taken! He then called the Road Development Authority as I sat there and repeated his complaint mentioning that several accidents had occurred due to the malfunctioning traffic lights. Indispensable mechanisms to curb unruliness and maintain law and order are neglected - at such cost to the public. How then can this country gear itself to meet new challenges, if we can't ensure the smooth functioning of such a simply vital thing as Traffic Lights? F. H. I. Mohamed, It is disgusting to note that our daily newspapers have become unfit to be read by our young ones. The latest addition is an advertisement by a well-known jewellery maker, where they purportedly advertise their jewellery through a woman with hardly any jewellery on - and worse still hardly any clothes on, and this advertisement is almost half the page size. Surely a reputed company of this calibre - with good quality products does not have to stoop to such a cheap gimmick to catch the public eye and just whose eyes are they trying to catch? I spoke to quite a few housewives - they are all furious about this wanton display of flesh in the name of Valentines Day. We, the mothers do not want our young - the boys or the girls to think that this is what love is all about. Nor do we want to patronise a company who does not have that much of common sense to know right from wrong. If the advertisers will do anything for a few bucks - cannot our papers be a little more responsible in accepting what they will publish? Surely they have a conscience - they will not sell their souls too for a few extra bucks, or will they? It applies to advertisements too. DR. MAREENA REFFAI, This is in connection with the article written by Prof. Wickramanayake on the subject "Cosmetic Surgeons and Nutrition Policy, appearing in Sunday Observer of 9th February. He quotes a recent recommendation by a cosmetic surgeon that one should consume 1000g fish oil daily. The author of that article is myself, and I did confess that this was an error in a letter sent to the editor, Daily News, when the Professor had quoted the same in another article on the same subject. The daily dose of Omega 3 oil, as recommended by American Nutritionists, and by Shamala Ratnesar, a clinical dietitian in Australia, in her book on food guide for health and healing, and Omega - 3 life program, is 1000mg daily. Enteric coated Omega-3 oil 1000mg capsules are available in Australia, UK and US. The Omega 3 oil available in Sri Lanka are gelatine coated capsules containing 300 mg in each. Enteric coated ones are recommended, as this oil may give gastric reflux and other gastro intestinal upsets. The Professor seems to be harping on this 'printer's devil', which is regretted. We appreciate the Professor drawing the attention of the public and health professionals to a document published by the Ministry of Health on Food based dietary guidelines for Sri Lankans (FBDG). Sri Lankans must also be given the choice of reading articles on Nutrition and health topics through magazines, article published by Nutritionists of international repute, through the internet and other sources, and make up their own minds as to the guidelines they should follow for maintaining optimal health and longevity. My talks and articles are based on those guidelines. Dr. Harold Gunatillake - Cosmetic Surgeon Revision of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance The society must be congratulated for organising a forum to enable public participation and discussion towards creating a public awareness on the revision of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance. The President Ashley de Voss said that there would be more workshops on the revision as the protection of Fauna and Flora was the purpose of the society. There seemed an undertone of suspicion among some speakers and members on why the revision had been restricted to government officials without the involvement of the public as well as those specialising in the connected subjects. The cause for suspicion appeared to be the American rain forest deal with the feeling that profit motivated piracy was at the bottom of the deal. The underlying query was whether the ordinance was being doctored for this purpose and for the commercialisation of Fauna and Flora with the opening of private Zoos and farms which the Revision allowed. The Forum has raised the following questions; That if political interference is a cause of encroachment and inability to act effectively against poaching, could this be rectified by revising the ordinance? Further could a problem of inadequate demarcation of boundaries too be rectified by the revision of the ordinance? If major cause of ineffectual implementation is political then tougher laws will only help the politician and the subordinate government official for their benefit through selective implementation. Criteria The US rain forest deal would have to be investigated realistically. The peoples doubt and query of whether the country would loose its natural national wealth due to foreign participation would have to be investigated. As the main component of income would come from the possible loss through the development and marketing of genetically engineered products from the indigenous gene pool, the question that would have to be answered is whether the country has the capability to develop and market such products and if so the time requirement because time has become an important criteria for conservation. Rain forests have a high density of life forms and the loss of a life form due to a countries incapacity to protect habitats cannot be confined as a national matter because the Earth loses one of its life forms. Today with the speeding up of gene mapping it would be a matter of time for the possibility of recording the genetic prints of all life forms, hence their mechanisms for survival and the possibility of future replication. In the rapidly changing environment the essence is in conserving the habitats till all life forms are discovered before extinction. If financial constraints and ineffective management is the cause of the rapid destruction of the Habitat and with it the extinction of its indigenous life forms; Would it not be better to come to an agreement with any nation or body that has the capacity for both that helps to protect and conserve, or should the gene pool allowed to diminish through incapability? Hopefully the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society will without wasting much time organise workshops on the issues that has surfaced from this forum. A shortcoming of the conducted forum was the lack of copies of the proposed revision for the perusal of the participants. A. G. de Almeida, |
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