Pillars of resistance

ENGLISH MEDIUM: In returning to the past, to review the reintroduction of English medium, I referred last week to the initial contribution made towards training programmes of Parvathi Nagasunderam and Oranee Jansz.

The juxtaposition of their names brought back to mind the first time they had been brought together, under very different circumstances.

It occurred to me then that I might usefully digress from the story of English medium itself, to look at other aspects of English teaching that are also relevant to the sad story of this country, where professional excellence falls prey to so many jealousies.

This was in 1992, when I moved to the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and first met Oranee Jansz, then the longest serving member of its English Teaching Unit.

Paru I had met twelve years earlier when I found her, one of the brightest students at Peradeniya, as a teacher, who had passed the GAQ externally.

She obtained a special degree and went on to a range of appointments so that, by 1992, she was almost unique in the levels at which she had taught - schools for students, a National College of Education for aspiring English teachers, and then the Higher Institute of English Education, flagship of the newly established National Institute of Education, for teacher trainers.

After I persuaded her to leave that and join USJP, she retired as Head of the Department of English there. I find it astonishing that her services have not been made use of since, at the levels at which she could do so much for the country.

It was her arrival at USJP which made me understand how deep the rot had gone in our universities. I had joined primarily to look after the English programme at Affiliated University Colleges, the brainchild of Arjuna Aluwihare, Chairman of the UGC from 1989 to 1993. Realising how difficult it was to move the university system into the modern age, he started a parallel system devoted to work oriented programmes.

Sadly, the established departments at Peradeniya, Colombo and Kelaniya had not responded to his appeal, believing they had a duty to preserve standards that would enable, as one of their heads put it, their products to go on to postgraduate work at Cambridge.

USJP however, where English was available as just one subject towards a general degree, took up the challenge, and accepted responsibility for the AUC English Diploma programmes.

However, they did not really have the expertise to develop suitable courses of study, so Arjuna was delighted when he found me interested in the initiative. The moving spirit behind USJP’s enthusiasm was their Professor in Sanskrit, whose commitment to scholarship as well as social service was unquestionable.

This was Mahinda Palihawadana, and after Arjuna put me in touch with him, we worked together very happily. At first I was simply an Adviser, whilst continuing at the British Council, but then the lady in charge of English emigrated to Australia, just about the time when Prof Palihawadana was retiring.

They both claimed the initiative would collapse if I did not take over full time and, the Council appealing less at this stage, as it moved from a social service organisation into a commercial operation, I decided to move.

I had hoped to concentrate on the AUCs, but USJP obviously wanted attention too. I was able to restructure the English syllabuses, so as to offer one course in English Language and another in literature.

Sadly, with opposition from the Head of the Department of Languages, and the resignation of the immensely supportive Dean, because of internal intrigues, the proposal to establish a Department of English and a Special Degree was delayed, and only realised some years after I left. Paru however, stayed on, and provided excellent leadership for these when they got off the ground, as also for the innovative external degree we started, targeted at English teachers.

This included papers in English Language and English Literature, plus a third in the classics, which seemed desirable to ensure reading in English (USJP in those days was essentially Sinhala medium) as well as some knowledge of the background to English literature and culture. In 2001, when I began work at the Ministry, I asked universities to introduce English Language Teaching as a subject for external degrees, and Paru promptly obliged so that now, instead of classics, teachers can offer ELT along with English Language and Literature.

This makes for a very useful package for teachers around the country who previously had no practical course through which they could develop professionally.

Though, Paru proved a vital asset to English courses leading to a degree, I had initially wanted her also for the English Language Teaching Unit which I had also been asked to head when I joined USJP.

I was wary about this, and more so after an initial survey in which I found that work was not really coherent. Though initially I felt this was largely the fault of the ELTU itself, I later realised that the resistance of academic programmes to allowing credit for English courses meant that students had little reason to take English classes seriously.

However, at the time, I was given a tale of woe by the heads of various departments, who were unanimous in declaring that most of the teachers were useless, and they would all like to have Oranee Jansz allocated for their subjects.

Ironically, Oranee was at that stage the most vocal in her opposition to me. A strong trade unionist, she thought my appointment an insult to the ELTU. What she did not know at the time was that, when the previous head had resigned, Prof Palihawadana, acting as Vice-Chancellor prior to his own retirement whilst a dispute over the new appointment was resolved, had wanted to appoint her to the position.

The rest of the senior ladies had objected strongly, doubtless nervous that her undoubted work ethic would demand more of them than they were prepared to contribute.

Hence, the suggestion that I take over. In turn, since this was not really my field, I suggested Paru, once we had appointed her. I should have known better. We had also appointed a Tamil gentleman at the time, and there were mutterings from the senior ladies of the ELTU that we were introducing a Tiger into their midst.

They all refused to have him in the Faculties they looked after, which was when Oranee’s sterling nature asserted itself, and she immediately took him into the Medical Faculty which had just started, and which she was in charge of.

Paru’s appointment was greeted with similar execration, and she was reduced to tears and resigned, declaring that she would not go anywhere near the ELTU in the future. This ultimately benefited enormo

usly our English degree students, but I still find it immensely sad that the racist cabal there had been able to triumph so easily. Fortunately, the more confident academics took her to their hearts, and gave her the support she needed to do a fantastic job in her decade and a half at USJP.