Tara de Mel on Sri Lanka’s Educational Challenges
Sri Lanka has experienced a succession of acute crises over the past five decades, from terrorist insurgencies to ethnic civil war and, most recently, an economic emergency intensified by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout this period, education has been intimately intertwined with the island’s various social and political problems. Endemic credentialism combined with economic stagnation have played a potent role in fueling youth discontent. Sri Lanka is celebrated for its success in universalising access to basic education. But the country’s experience illustrates that educational expansion in and of itself is not an unalloyed good - for Sri Lanka, this has entailed intensified competition, fueling the shadow education industry and worsening social inequality. Meanwhile, divisions of ethnicity, language and religion continue to threaten social cohesion, posing challenges for education reform.
In this episode, Dr Tara de Mel talks to Edward Vickers and Yoko Mochizuki about her three decades of involvement in education policy debates in Sri Lanka. Originally a medical doctor and university lecturer, from the mid-1990s Prof. de Mel spent almost ten years as education policy advisor to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, also serving as Vice-Chair of the Education Commission. In recent years, she has continued to engage in education policy advocacy, founding the NGO Education Forum.
Themes covered in this wide-ranging discussion include:
- The politics and practice of language education - specifically the aborted efforts in the early 2000s to expand access to ‘bilingual education’ (in English and mother tongues), and the more recent ‘trilingual education’ programme.
- Education’s role in fostering (or undermining) social cohesion.
- Curriculum and assessment in Sri Lankan schooling, and the challenges of reform.
- Problems of credentialism and examination-preparatory shadow education.
- The effects on Sri Lankan education and on young people of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- The potential and limitations of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in helping children, their families and educators to cope with crisis-induced trauma.
Recommended readings:
Tara de Mel (2023). Reforming Education: Challenges to Change (Education Reforms 1996-2005).
Angela Little and Siri Hettige (2013). Globalisation, Employment and Education in Sri Lanka: Opportunity and Division. London and New York: Routledge.
Christina P. Davis (2020). The Struggle for a Multilingual Future: Youth and Education in Sri Lanka. Oxford University Press.
