Improving Western Province education sector

By Ranil Wijayapala

The Western Province which shares the highest Gross Domestic Product of the country and all other physical and human resources has always ranked first in all sectors in terms of development in the country. It maintained the highest reputation for its education among all nine provinces in the country and recorded the best results in school education as it inherits both physical and human resources in terms of education in the country.

Improving the primary education in the province by providing student-friendly classrooms

Introducing information technology to schools in the Western Province

Western Province Chief Minister and Education Minister Prasanna Ranathunga

When we analyse the performance of education in terms of examination results, it seems that the Western Province is losing its grip over best education performance, except from the G.C.E. (O/L) examination results during the past few years.

When students from other provinces come out with good performances at national level examinations, it highlights the performance of Western Province schools as it used to take the lead in all examinations in the past.

However, there is a big story behind the education performance of the province as its performance in education is influenced by many factors. Prasanna Ranathunga who held the portfolio of Education Minister in the province since his first appointment as the Chief Minister in 2009 and again in 2014 for the second consecutive term, is continuing his efforts to improve the performance of education in the province.

Explaining the situation, Chief Minister Prasanna Ranathunga said that although the education sector in the western province painted a bright picture to other parts of the country, when he took over the education subject in 2009 it had many shortcomings.

"Some of the problems faced by the school education sector were common to all parts of the country due to the conflict situation of the country but there were many problems which were inherent to the western province", he said.

Though the immense physical resources inherited by these schools seems to be a blessings they have become a big burden to those schools as there was no means to maintain them properly due to lack of funds and human capital. Apart from that, buildings with only foundation stones and a large number of half built buildings that existed for years have become a big problem to these schools.

"We had a vision to develop the education sector in the province and we started to work out that vision into a reality by creating a better school environment for the students after mobilising all human and physical resources to clean and colour-wash all the school buildings in all 1,267 schools in the province allocating Rs. 372 million for this purpose", the Minister said.

Steps were also taken to construct 128 school buildings which had only foundation stones and completed another 110 half built school buildings allocating Rs.300 million in 2011 and Rs. 400 million in 2012. For the improvement of physical resources and maintaining them we have increased the allocation Rs. 800 million in 2009 to Rs. 1,600 million per year.

The Zonal Education Offices and the Divisional Education Offices were also developed after equipped them with computer and other modern facilities.

Giving physical resources alone will not develop the quality of the education. "Therefore, we need to develop the human resources of the schools as well", the Chief Minister said.

In terms of filling teacher vacancies in the province it has recruited 11,400 graduate teachers based on the competitive exam held to recruit graduates as teachers to the western province schools and now we are maintaining 21:1 pupils and teacher ratio in the provincial schools.

"We have filled more than 96 to 98 percent teacher vacancies in all these schools and we are going to recruit more teachers after conducting another competitive examination this year", the Minister said.

Since recruitment of teachers alone won't help develop the school education the Provincial Education Ministry is taking steps to train all the primary level graduate teachers as there is shortage of trained primary teachers in most of the schools.

As education alone will not make good citizens the Provincial Education Ministry has also taken initiatives to improve good qualities among students as it helps create a good society.

"Schools cannot commit on long-term basis for such programs, so we thought of taking assistance from the Dhamma schools in the province and increasing the number of students attending Dhamma schools. For that we allocated Rs.100,000 for each and every Dhamma School in the province irrespective of the religion to improve the physical resources of the Dhamma schools", the Minister said.

Despite the improvement of the physical resources and human resources of the school education system there is something lacking in the education system in the Western Province. "Though we are considered the most developed province in all aspects we see that other provinces too are developing their education system with lesser facilities. So we had to change the attitudes of the education officials in the western province to bring an end to this stalemate situation", the Minister said.

In this regard the Ministry had consulted educational experts and had conducted seminars and workshops for the education officers from the Education Secretary to school principals to line up them to achieve one target in education performance.

"As politicians we can provide all what is required to improve the education system. Taking that system into new horizons is at the hands of these officials and teachers. But we are determined to achieve our targets in education in keeping with Mahinda Chinthana program to make Sri Lanka the education hub in Asia when making Sri Lanka the miracle of Asia", the Minister said.

Secretary to the Education Ministry of the Western Province Bandula Daya Senerath explaining the factors that are influencing the education performance in the province, said that the huge diversity of student population in the province is also making a great impact on the school education system in the western province.

"The Western province is comprised the population from the richest people to the poorest people representing various strata of society from shanty dwellers to top brass business people.

So they are having diverse attitudes towards the school education and many of them want to improve their income levels rather than school education", the Secretary said.

"The numbers of students not attending schools are much higher in the western province compared to other province. The Negombo coastal belt has the highest number of school drop-outs in the province due to their engagement in the tourism sector and the fisheries sector", he said.

According to him the target of achieving 100 percent school education in 2017, it has become difficult target for the province as the number of school drop-outs in the province is very high between the ages of 10 to 16.

"The family background of the students living in urban settlements and wards and the coastal belt in Negombo and other coastal areas and the parents attitude towards school education has hampered their school education", he said.

To overcome this situation the Western Province has implemented a program to get back the children in schooling age back to the school even before the implementation of the national program which was started on October 1.

"From January to September this year alone 450 students drop-outs from the schools were directed for school education", he said. With regard to progress in the primary education the Western Province is ranked 6th place last year based on the Grade 5 scholarship exam results.

"We are getting lower rank in primary education as most of the students sitting for the grade 5 scholarship examination are having less enthusiasm as they are already having popular schools. Therefore our position in the primary education is lower than other provinces", he said.

However, the Western Province has been able to keep the first place in the G.C.E. (O/L) examination. "We are trying to maintain this position by giving targets for the schools to improve the pass rates in the O/L examination and conduct seminars and workshops for the students who are recording weak results at term tests and monthly tests", he said.

To improve the pass rates in Maths, Science and English subjects for the teachers of these subjects, the Ministry is conducting workshops for all the teachers from the O/L classes to improve their results. "We are paying much attention for the schools which have shown poor performances in these subjects", he said.

At the G.C.E. (A/L) results we are ranked lower than other provinces when taking overall performance of the A/L students. But with regard to Maths and Science subjects results Western Province is ranked first among the nine provinces and third place with regard to the commerce subject stream results.

Our overall performance at the G.C.E. (A/L) is poor because the number of students following science subjects are higher in the province compared to the Arts subjects.

"Therefore, the number of students qualifying for the university education is less in the western province compared to the other provinces of the country", he said.

"In keeping with the national education policy we are trying our best to produce more and more science educated students rather than producing higher number of arts subjects qualified students", he said.

He said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa is always extending his hand to the Chief Minister to improve the education system in the Western Province while Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa has also committed to provide Rs. 4,000 million for the improvement of physical resources in schools.

"Our intention is to make our contribution to the government effort to make Sri Lanka the education hub in Asia in its march to make Sri Lanka the miracle of Asia by producing more and more science and technology educated students to the job market", Bandula Daya Senerath said.