T. O. P. Fernando

Technology and general education

Pre -vocat iona l educat ion in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka education is almost entirely financed and managed by the government. While policy on education is decided by the Minister of Education with the advice of the Secretary/Director-General and additional sec- retary, the implementation, administration and management is carried out by a decentralized organization. For this purpose the country is divided into fifteen regions. Each education re- gion is in the charge of a regional director of education.

There are approximately 2.5 million pupils enrolled between grades I and XU. Of these, 64 per cent are in grades I to v, 34 per cent in grades VI to X and 2 per cent in grades XI and XlI. Enrolments in non-government schools totalled approximately I5O,OOO. Thus, the total school enrolments of 2.65 million correspond to 216 pupils per I,OOO population. In other words, about one in five members of the population are in school.

Education has been allotted 16 per cent of the current expenditure of the government, and 5.7 per cent of the government's capital budget. The recurrent expenditure on education is 4-9 per cent of gross national product and the capital expenditure 0. 3 per cent of gross national product.

T. O. P. Fernando. Director of Education (Technical Education), Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka.

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The "problem" and the need for reforms

The government enacted a free education bill in 1945 ensuring free education from kinder- garten to the university. It was, therefore, to be expected that after twenty-five years or so, the literacy rate in the country and the enrolment figures in schools would be high. This is in fact so, as 85 per cent to 95 per cent of those in the age group 6-9 years have enrolled in schools. After five years of schooling, 85 out of every IOO who enrolled in grade I remain in school; how- ever, of IOO students who join grade I, only 5 ~ reach grade VI, the combined effect of drop- outs and repeaters.

Students proceeding to secondary education, 'stream' into arts, science, commerce, etc., at the end of grade VIII and prepare for the General Certificate of Education (ordinary level) held at grade X in a cluster of six subjects, with the hope of proceeding to higher education in a popular field. Every year about 3oo, ooo students sit this ordinary level examination. Of this num- ber 27 per cent offer science subjects, while the remaining 63 per cent offer arts subjects. A few technical subjects such as woodwork, metal- work, weaving, ceramics have been taught as optional subjects in a small number of schools. These subjects have been treated as examination subjects at the General Certificate of Education (ordinary level) (GCE'O') and have therefore not drawn any appreciable number of students. The

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Pre-vocational education in Sri Lanka

study of these technical subjects in this manner has not made such students better suited for employment.

While 3oo,ooo sit the 'O' level (including repeaters) only 4o,ooo approximately qualify for entry to grade XI and XlI leading up to the GCE 'A' (advanced) level. Of these 4o,ooo students, 3 ~ per cent offer science sub- jects while 7 ~ per cent offer arts subjects. Of those successful in the 'A' level, which is the basis of selection to the university, about I,OOO students enter per year for science, architecture, dentis- try, agriculture, engineering, while 2,5oo students enter the university for arts.

It is therefore evident from the foregoing that the serious problems that we face are the un- employability of: the large number of students who either drop out without completing nine years of schooling; or who sit the 'O' level but do not proceed to the 'A' level, approximately I5O,OOO a year; or, finally, who sit the 'A' level, but do not enter the university, in the region of 35,ooo a year.

What can then be done to these large numbers of students, who inevitably storm the employ- ment market? Why are they unemployable? What are they %killed' at?

The only avenue of employment for these youths will be the 'white-collar' jobs. Such jobs are, even in the best of economies, very rare. In a country like ours, burdened with trade deficits and balance-of-payments problems leading to a foreign-exchange crisis, burdened also with debt servicing and an unbearable food-subsidy bill, the employment avenues in non-productive fields must necessarily dwindle.

While unemployment is a disturbing prob- lem, educated unemployment is certainly more disturbing. The higher the level of education, lower are the chances of finding employment. 1 This, then is a major problem. While the con- tributory causes are indeed many and also inter- related and the remedies have to be wrought on a wide field of action, it was time for educational planners to rethink. The ensuing proposals, one

of which is the introduction of pre-vocational subjects into the general secondary curriculum, are the outcome of this rethinking by our edu- cational planners.

N e w proposals

Education is an investment in human resources; it is intended to enrich the personality of the educated, to promote national development, to raise the cultural and intellectual level of the population, to create useful citizens and to create a better, fuller and more useful life. All this is good but not sufficient. Education must also service the occupations available in the country. It must also contribute to the productivity of the economic system. It is with these latter objec- tives and the remedying of the 'problems' enu- merated elsewhere, that the 'new proposal pack- age' was introduced early in 1972 , with the following reforms: (a) increases in the age of ad- mission, from 5 to 6 years; (b) changes in the content of primary education (grades I-V); (c) change in the content of junior secondary education, including the adoption of a common compulsory curriculum, with no streaming in arts, science, etc.; (d) introduction of pre- vocational subjects into the junior secondary curriculum (grades vI-IX); (e) reduction of the duration of school education from twelve to eleven years, with the key examinations held at grades IX and XI.

Pre-vocational subjects in the general school curriculum

The content of education in Sri Lanka has traditionally been highly academic. A large

I. See examples on Sri Lanka given by 1an Versluis in ~Secondary Educations Training and Employment: the Qualitative Mismatch in Developing Countries', Pros- pects, Vol. III, No. 3, Autumn 1973, P- 349-56. (Editor's note.)

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T. O. P. Fernando

measure of book-learning has been accepted as the only way to be 'educated', a result of pre- paring students for highly competitive examin- ations with a selection function. The aim has been for everybody to study in order to sit the GCE ~O' level and 'A' level examinations with a view again to entering the university. The 99 per cent that did not enter the university were therefore burdened with a quantum of knowledge that was useless to them, that did not fit them into the occupational profile of the country; knowledge that on the contrary alien- ated them from the society and from the 'world of work'.

Pre-vocational subiects were introduced in order that the student made use of what he learnt in school, even if he did not proceed to higher education. The aim was to bridge the gap between the school and society, to remove the artificial barriers that existed between school- book learning and learning about the environ- ment. Pre-vocational studies are intended to give an understanding of agriculture, local in- dustry, local raw materials, methods and skills of production. The intention here is not to teach a technical subject as a vocation (the task of vocational schools), but to give the student basic skills and an understanding of the nature and scope of occupations available in the economy.

The new curriculum ofiunior secondary edu- cation (grades VI-IX) has been drawn up in order to give prime importance to pre-vocational studies, which have been allotted seven out of forty periods, or fT. 5 per cent of the total teaching time.

The schools have been given complete free- dom in the choice ofpre-vocational subjects and the selection has been made with great care. The principal of the school, and the teachers, in consultation with local industry and agriculture, select an area of study relevant to the immedi- ate neighbourhood. The student's activities can thus be integrated with his environment. Care has been taken to select subjects amenable to

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disciplined pedagogical techniques, taking into account the age group of the students.

Out of a very large number of pre-vocational subjects introduced at the beginning of this year in grade VI, some of the more popular ones are gemming, fisheries, animal husbandry, motor mechanism, flower industry, brick- making, ratten work, tile industry, retail trade, bicycle repairs, printing, agriculture, carpentry, fruit preservation, light-metal work and paper industry.

Curriculum development

The introduction of pre-vocational subjects has been a revolution in the content of secondary education. There were no prepared curricula or textbooks, and the whole process of cur- riculum development in this field had to start from scratch. In this context, we discarded the philosophy, at least for a beginning, of a centrally dictated curriculum, emanating from the curriculum-development centre. Curricular techniques, such as learning to learn and the method of inquiry hitherto used mainly for teaching of science, will now be extended to pre-vocational subjects. But in the first instance, we relied on the local expert, the local craftsman and small-scale farmer to enrich the curriculum with his knowledge, skills and expertise.

The teachers were given only the guidelines and the philosophy behind the selection and teaching of the new subjects. They were en- couraged to meet with local experts, to carry out field trials, to carry out pilot projects and gather data. The basic curricula were those prepared by the teachers themselves. This not only gave a sense of participation, but also re- moved the built-in resistance to dogma and directive being sent down from the centre. Pre- liminary drafts of curricula were discussed and refined at circuit level, and later at district level, and finally at ministry level. At each of these levels, officers of the curriculum develop-

Pre-vocational education in Sri Lanka

merit centre organized field visits and discussed and advised, where necessary. Thus, while the centre guided the teachers in the fundamentals, the real subiect matter and content were as de- signed by the peripheral units.

As I have mentioned earlier, this scheme was put into operation at the beginning of i972. As a second phase in the curriculum development, the centre is now examining in detail how best to improve and refine the curricula in the light of the feedback from operations now going on in all parts of the country. Seminars and confer- ences are now being organized at circuit and district level to modify the schemes, where necessary. The benefit of these improvements and refinements will be fed back into the sys- tem, to apply whatever mid-course corrections may be deemed necessary.

Teacher training

It was of prime importance that teachers who had never before taught pre-vocational subjects be given some sort of training. However, it was not possible to organize and execute a complete training system prior to beginning the pro- gramme, and teacher training has been taken in hand simultaneously with the operation of the programme. Weekend and vacation in- service training courses have now been organized through the length and breadth of the country. Teacher-trainers have been given training in this new field at the centre and they in turn have organized training courses at regional level. Training has in turn been extended to circuit level.

Stumbling-blocks and possibilities

One of the earliest difficulties encountered was the usual and expected resistance to change, which was apparent not only among teachers but also among the parents. The teachers had

certain misgivings about the role they were ex- pected to play. The parents were fearful that their children were being deprived of an aca- demic education and were being taught instead a vocation. Such fears were natural in a society where every parent believed that the gateway to a certain job and prosperity lay through an aca- demic education terminating in the university.

However, such fears were gradually allayed by a concerted campaign of publicity in which the mass-media was used to great advan- tage. Seminars, conferences, discussions, lec- tures, etc., were organized to educate the pub- lic, to explain the rationale for the reforms. It must be mentioned here that the general pub- lic understood and accepted the necessity for these reforms. Perhaps the insurgent activities, which took place in April I97 r, involving the youth of our country, may have helped in this understanding.

The changes have not been executed with- out flaw. This would indeed be impossible, in so short a time. Besides, we have a wide- spread, centrally controlled system of education. The school system comprises IO,OOO schools with IOO,OOO teachers, 4o, ooo other employees and 2.65 million pupils. Thus approximately 3 million, out of a population of I2 million, are directly engaged in education in one ca- pacity or the other. It would be natural that any changes would thus take time topercolate through the system.

Vocational education in this country has gen- erally leaned on the proved and tested methods of more affluent countries, and has tended to the heavy use of sophisticated equipment and tools which are costly. The pre-voeatioual pro- grammes have been so designed as to eliminate or reduce to the bare minimum reliance on im- ported machinery and equipment. Great store has been laid in the ingenuity of the teachers for the proper utilization of resources that are locally available.

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T. O. P. Fernando

Link-up with technical/vocational education

While the teacher-training programmes now afoot will tide over the initial difficulties and meet the requirements of the early implemen- tation of the new pre-vocational programme, it is very likely that further teacher training will be necessary for the teachers to cope with the curriculum of the next few years. This is more evident in disciplines which will have a content lasting the full four years from grade VI to IX. It is intended to organize more intensive teacher- training courses in either single subjects, or clusters of pre-vocational subjects, that can be better organized in the country's technical in- stitutions and the recently established technical teacher-training institute. These programmes will naturally be co-ordinated with activities of the curriculum-development centre.

It is logical that pre-vocational subjects must, in the end, lead to some areas of vocational training. The many students who will not pro-

ceed beyond grade IX, will need to be given further training of a vocational nature, in order that they may make a useful contribution to the economy. Short vocational courses of this nature will be organized by the provincial technical institutions, to meet with the local demand. Preliminary work in this regard is being made now to meet the need when it arises.

We are still only two years into the operation of the pre-vocational programme in the junior secondary education curriculum, and by any standards~ this is far too short a period to make any realistic evaluation of the programme. It would take perhaps five to six years be- fore the results would be evident. However, we are confident that we are proceeding in the correct direction. I t now remains to im- prove the efficiency of the system. We take courage from the fact that the international educational community is taking a keen interest in reforms of the type we have introduced in the Republic of Sri Lanka.

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