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New frontiers in education

It is the fourth year of the New Millennium, yet Sri Lanka's education sector still depends on a set of policies formulated nearly 64 years ago. Educationists have been urging successive governments to overhaul the education system to suit modern needs, but little has been done apart from some ad-hoc experiments. Students were victimised as one government abolished a program started by another. The lack of a coherent national education policy has been the root cause of such retrogressive actions.

Education authorities seem to be moving in the right direction at last. The National Education Commission (NEC) in a document outlining its policy proposals to the Government has recommended that the existing 1939 Education Act should be replaced with a new development-oriented, simple and broad based Act to meet current challenges.

Presenting the report, 'Proposals for a National Policy Framework on General Education in Sri Lanka', at Isurupaya on Friday, NEC Chairman Prof. R.P. Gunawardena expressed the widely-held view that the "existing Act is outdated, not applicable and irrelevant to the current needs".

The report has identified several shortcomings in the education system. It has noted with concern that extreme politicisation of the system at all levels as a prime reason for the overall inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the country's education system. It suggests that a single minister be appointed for the subject of education, instead of three or four ministers, as is the case at present. In our view, the government should also resolve the perennial tussle between provincial councils and the central government's education authorities over funding, national schools and other pertinent issues.

Sri Lanka leads South Asia in human development indices thanks to free education and health. Alarmingly, there are indications that the national expenditure on both these vital sectors has decreased over the years. The NEC report has recognised this trend and called for a substantial rise in the budgetary allocation for education, observing that Sri Lanka's expenditure on education as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product is now one of the lowest in the region.

It is also necessary to treat all schools equally. Out of the nearly 10,000 schools islandwide, only a few hundred have all required facilities. The gap between super-schools in the cities and rural schools is widening. Improving at least a few schools in each district to the level of leading national schools will reduce the chaotic scramble for admissions to popular city schools.

As the report points out, developing schools alone will not suffice if no attempt is made to send all children to school. The authorities must ensure that all children from five to 16 years, especially females, attend school.

The subjects they are taught at school must reflect current needs and trends. One of the biggest failures of the current education structure is the vast disparity between school curricula and the requirements of the job market. Most school-leavers and even graduates are poorly equipped for these real-world jobs, which, in most cases, require proficiency in English and Information Technology. A new education structure should address this critical issue.

The NEC proposals will no doubt be widely debated and further refined before a final decision is made. But the time has come to shed politics and evolve an education system that will serve the nation's interests in the 21st century.

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Star dust

Comets have fascinated mankind for millennia. The sight of a comet with its long, shimmering tail and icy, nebulous nucleus streaking through the night sky never loses its allure. They are periodic visitors to the solar system, following regular orbits. Halley's Comet is undoubtedly the most famous one, though there are countless others out there.

Now, scientists at NASA have managed to scoop comet dust from one of those comets, called Wild-2 (pronounced Vilt-2). After traveling five years at the speed of 13,645 mph and covering 2.3 billion miles, the US$ 200 million NASA space probe 'Stardust' pounced on the tail of the comet on Friday and trapped space dust to bring back to Earth. It also snapped rare pictures of the celestial visitor from just 350 Km away.

Why this massive interest in comets? Scientists are still looking for clues to the origins of the Earth and the solar system. They believe that the universe started with a big bang, but beyond that, their knowledge is hazy. Comets, possibly the oldest bodies in the solar system, could contain a record of the original material that formed the sun and the planets 4.5 billion years ago and provide them with an answer.

This is why scientists all over the world are excited at the prospect of studying and analysing 'comet dust' in two years' time when the NASA probe returns to Earth. If successful, the mission would mark the first robotic retrieval of extraterrestrial material since 1976, when Luna 24 returned soil and rock from the moon.

Researchers hope that the unique chemical and physical information locked within the comet's dust samples will teach them whether comets or interstellar dust provided the water or organic material necessary to form life. Some scientists have long speculated that comets 'seeded' life on Earth. Stardust will give them a chance to test this theory.

The resurgence in space exploration indicates that man is keen to move beyond the confines of the Earth. As Stardust proves, we will learn more about our world - and ourselves - in doing so.

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