• Our teaching profession

• Listen Tourist Board !

• Stray dogs bite

• Re: School uniforms
  
  
  Our teaching profession

Almost in every school there appears to be a significant and rapid degeneration in the standards of teaching and a general lack of discipline among students. I could recall when I was a student myself over five decades ago, that the school was considered the only centre where a student could acquire knowledge and discipline to mould himself to become a good citizen to the Society. It was an era when teachers discharged their duties conscientiously and commanded respect from their students and their parents.

But today, those hallowed standards of the by-gone era are now but only a part of a nostalgic dream. The old order has drastically changed yielding place to a generation of Directors, Circuit Inspectors and Principals and Teachers who are highly politicised and have moreorless become henchmen of the elected Politician of the Electorate concerned branded as the servant of the ruling political Party.

Lethargy, absentism late-attendance have become the hallmark in the teaching profession. School children are not adequately taught in the classroom and are forced to go for tuition classes, expenses for which parents can ill-afford.

A sense of urgency is needed to make suitable structural changes in the Teaching profession on the basis of those methods adopted during the past decades, such as surprise inspections by Flying Squads etcetera, to arrest this pathetic situation in schools and to take prompt actions against whoever was found failing in duties, no matter what their official or social position be or what political affiliations they have.

This would be the only way out to restore the already declined dignity of this Noble Service - Teaching, if we were to call it - A Service Pro - Bono - Publico once again.

by Don Sarath Abeysekera, Bandarawela.

Listen Tourist Board !

The Tourist Board should direct the Government in all aspects of tourism and protect the Tourist industry and all its associated establishments. They should guide the Government in matters of policy, the pricing of the hotels and finally be responsible for the ultimate product that is offered to the tourist. Though the Tourist Board is supposed to be funded by the Government, it has found ways and means of destroying the foundation of industries that really support this Industry.

Small gem and curio shops are asked to be registered with the Tourist Board, and no one knows for what. This is not to protect the Tourist Industry or the tourists, but to find funds for the high imaginative living of the Tourist Board Officials.

Citizens should know that the Tourist Board charges Rs. 5000 per annum for licensing, per institution, immaterial of their turnover, just for a certificate. among other charges.

Now, this is creating a precedent, charging for travel. In the future the Police, Excise and other institutions will keep on charging for their official travelling as well.

by Walter Fernando, Ratmalana.

Stray dogs bite

Stray dogs bite over 500,000 people in Sri Lanka every year. This number in reality is far greater because most of the bites are treated locally and not reported. The cost of anti-Rabies vaccine alone is said to be Rs. 331 million to the Dept. of Health. Besides this the lost of manpower hours and the cost of bandages, antibiotics etc. is immense.

The number of stray dogs is increasing because the Govt. in charge of restricting their numbers has been misguided by so-called compassionate environmentalists who have advocated a ban of the rounding up and killing of these dangerous animals.

Those of us who have seen human beings die of Hydrophobia and rabies know what a horrible death it is. Once one contracts rabies it is 100% fatal. Those misguided people who are talking of compassion towards these strays would think otherwise if one of their kith and kin, like a son or daughter were to die of this fatal illness, after being bitten by a rabid dog.

Sterilisation does not eradicate rabies. Sterilised dogs can carry rabies which they transmit to humans.

by Dr. L. Fernando, Moratuwa

Re: School uniforms

With reference to the article on the above subject by S. Pathiravitana (Sunday Observer, August 13) which is concerned with "the most rational dress for a tropical country", may I draw attention to the custom in the tropical island of Pala, an idealistic-realistic utopia (Huxley Island: a novel 1962) situated 500 km east of Sri Lanka.

In the Lower Fifth form in school, boys wore a loincloth, girls wore a skirt. sometimes with a necklace of shells. In the Upper fifth, boys and girls were again bare-chested. Their "golden bodies glistened in the heat". Boys wore white or khaki shorts. Girls wore long gaily coloured skirts.

They "showed the swell of small breasts, firm, high-set, elegant as the inventions of a rococo sculptor of nymphs. And everyone took them completely for granted."

by V. Basnayake