Keywords

Participation in education remained high in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province during the civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2009. Amid ongoing bombing and shelling, teachers, principals, and administrators continuously worked to keep schools running. Many erected temporary huts for students to attend school and take exams even under the stressful conditions of living in internally displaced persons camps. However, despite the critical role they played as first responders, both throughout the war and following the 2004 tsunami, education personnel and local communities were virtually excluded from participating in long-term relief and rehabilitation plans (Uyangoda 2013). A concerning pattern emerged in the aftermath of emergencies whereby the involvement of communities reduced as the role of the government and external donors increased (Harris 2006; Uyangoda 2013).

Postwar development efforts brought new possibilities for local participation. In 2013, the long-awaited Northern Provincial government was finally formed amid ongoing tensions between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil-speaking minority population. Despite its many limitations, the provincial system enabled the predominantly Tamil population in the North to begin addressing some of the massive problems brought about by decades of war, discrimination, and oppressive policies (Freire and Macedo 2001). For the education system, this was significant, considering that education had always been centrally administered and that after the war ended in 2009, the President of Sri Lanka appointed a General as Governor. In the absence of an elected Provincial Council, retired General Chadrasiri was in charge of all government sectors, including education.

When the Northern Provincial Council was elected in October 2013, the education minister, Thambyrajah Gurukularajah, a former teacher and administrator of the North himself, recognized the need to solicit broad participation in assessing the needs of the Northern Provincial education system. He initiated a participatory Northern Education System Review (NESR) and invited one of this chapter’s authors, Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam, to facilitate the entire process as a volunteer. The review was undertaken in the spirit of what Batliwala and Sheela (1997) have noted about participatory research—that it is not a contained, specific activity but rather a strategy in which every action is infused with “the need to join people in learning about their environment and locating solutions to problems” (p. 264). Over 400 stakeholders from all walks of life, from auto-rickshaw drivers to doctors and education professors, contributed their observations and recommendations to the NESR.

In this chapter, we present a case study of the NESR as an example of participatory action research (PAR) for educational development and policy making. Although a large literature exists on the experiences of foreign aid projects in conflict and postconflict societies, there is little documentation of national educational rehabilitation programs in postwar contexts (Burde 2005). Our purpose in detailing the methods involved in conducting the NESR is twofold. First, we emphasize the importance of including implementation as a critical aspect of PAR. We highlight the need to conceptualize “implementation” as part of the research agenda from the start so that research findings do not simply gather dust but are actually applied, in this case, through the implementation of policy recommendations. Toward this end, we propose the term “PARI,” for “participatory action research and implementation.” Second, we reflect on the challenges of implementation in the face of bureaucratic obstacles, limited human resources, and colonial legacies that limit processes of empowerment which participation is intended to enable. Our findings help address ethical concerns that arise when follow-up action fails to follow participatory research where expectations for change have been raised (Holland et al. 1998).

Beginning with a brief background on educational policymaking, school types, and the impact of war in northern Sri Lanka, this chapter then describes the PARI methods that were used to guide the NESR. The next section examines three of the recommendations to illustrate how implementation responsibilities were developed as part of the overall review process. This is followed by a discussion of challenges encountered in the implementation of recommendations. To conclude, we reflect on the significance of the participatory processes that guided the NESR.

Background

Educational Policy Making in Sri Lanka

Even before Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain in 1948, C.W.W. Kannangara, the first Minister of Education, ushered in free education, mother tongue education (in Sinhalese and Tamil), and the concept of central schools. These policies were supported with high levels of social spending, resulting in wide expansion of the education system. By 1991, Sri Lanka had already reached an 89% primary school net enrollment ratio and a 90% literacy rate among individuals 15 years and older (Little 2003). By the late 1990s, gender parity in literacy rates was also high (98%) among youth between 15 and 24 years old (UNICEF 2013).

Successive education ministers expressed support for the Kannangara theme of equal opportunity, but in practice, they issued policies that favored the Sinhala-Buddhist majority and eliminated English as the link language. For instance, the 1956 Sinhala Only Act made Sinhala the official language of the country. In 1971, the Standardization of Education Act introduced a discriminatory quota system that restricted university admission for the minority Tamil-speaking population. These policies increasingly disaffected youth in the North and East, eventually resulting in their use of violence as a means to bring about change.

Education policy in Sri Lanka has been largely ad hoc (Little 2011). The president is personally advised by the National Education Commission and often intervenes in educational policy making. Furthermore, education policy has primarily responded to economic policies since 1977, when the United National Party returned to power and introduced liberalization and deregulation measures. As a result, the number of foreign qualification suppliers in Sri Lanka increased dramatically (Little and Evans 2005). Private education and private “tutories” (tuition centers) mushroomed, while state control over the granting of academic and vocational qualifications weakened. These changes significantly distorted Sri Lanka’s “free” public education system (Arunatilake and Jayawardena 2010; Cole 2015).

Low government expenditures on education, coupled with politicized, centralized policy making, have left provinces bereft of policy ownership (Little 2011; Little and Evans 2005). Between 2006 and 2015, the government of Sri Lanka consistently allocated only around 2% of the gross domestic product on education. In 2016, the percentage increased to 6%, although a large share is designated for educational infrastructure (Wedagedara et al. 2015). Moreover, the practice of historical fund allocation contributes to sustained disparities across provinces. Most school budgets are prepared with limited stakeholder involvement and according to finance commission guidelines rather than quality input allocation (Arunatilake and de Silva 2004). Generally, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the National Institute of Education tend to focus on policy implementation rather than policy formulation. It is commendable that the National Education Commission has included many of the key recommendations of the NESR report in its 2017 Education Policy. For example, Vocational and Technical education will be included; compulsory education for all until year 13 (19 years) will replace the current up to year 12 (16 years) requirement; national examinations, curricula, teacher education and teaching methods are to be revised; a new education administration system will be introduced.

In 1987, the provincial council system intended to decentralize certain powers of educational administration from the national level to the provinces. As shown in Fig. 4.1, this system added new administrative layers reporting up to the Provincial MOE from schools, including divisional education offices, zonal education offices, and the Provincial Department of Education. However, there are significant limitations to provincial decentralization (Srinivasan 2015).

Fig. 4.1
figure 1

Sri Lanka Ministry of Education administrative structure

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In addition to inadequate funding, lower levels of the bureaucracy lack adequately qualified administrative and human resources to monitor project supervision and implementation. For instance, the Northern Province Education Department has a planning unit, but it focuses primarily on the next year’s activities and quarterly and monthly activities of the current year, except for building-related activities. It is not adequately staffed to make five-year plans in any significant, implementable way. From 2015 to 2017 there were only two staff. The Planning Unit’s work is done by those holding other positions within the department. They have no formal training in educational planning or educational finance.

Overview of School Types

Despite Sri Lanka’s noteworthy achievements in educational access, opportunities beyond primary school remain unequal. The education system is comprised of 13 grades, with children beginning grade 1 at five years old. Grade 1 and Grade 13 in Sri Lanka are kindergarten and Grade 12, respectively, in the Western education system.

In all nine provinces, there are four types of schools: 1AB, 1C, II, and III. Type 1AB schools are the most resourced. They offer grades up to General Certificate of Education (GCE), Advanced Level (AL), in four main streams—Arts, Science-Mathematics, Commerce and Technology. Type 1C schools also offer classes up to Grade 13 but offer only Arts and/or Commerce streams. The pattern of a large proportion of schools being Type II and Type III is reflected throughout the country. Type II schools primarily offer Grades 1 to 11, and they prepare students for the GCE Ordinary Level. Type III schools have only Grade 1 to 5 primary schools (with the exception of some schools that may have an additional one or two grades due to their remote locations).

The administration of schools is designated to either the national or provincial MOE or a school board, in the case of assisted schools. 1 There are 352 national schools, which fall within the purview of the national MOE, though the provincial department of education oversees their day-to-day activities. This divided responsibility/authority relationship with a lot of gray areas leads to administrative issues. National schools fall into the general 1AB category. Provincial schools are the full responsibility of the provincial MOE, although the Sri Lanka MOE approves the allocations of teaching and administrative positions.

Students across all school types spend significant amounts of time attending “private tutories” to prepare for high-stakes national exams. Private tutories are after-school learning centers that typically are held in sheds similar to those one would see in urban slums. (See Photos 4.1 and 4.2 of typical tutories.) Parents pay for their children in Grades 1 to 13 to attend lectures in spaces that accommodate from 50 to 200 students, cramped on crudely constructed benches. The teachers are either retired or serving teachers. A popular teacher would earn three times the salary that the government pays a teacher.

Photo 4.1
figure 2

Jaffa Central College (a national school), established in 1816 by Methodists

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Photo 4.2
figure 3

A popular tutory in Jaffna

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Students attend tutories after or before school, and on Saturdays and Sundays. On average, a student in Grade 5, 10, 11, 12, and 13 will attend 15 to 20 hours of classes in tuition centers per week. Grade 13 students, with the consent of the schools, attend tuition centers during school hours from January to July before the August examinations. It is popularly believed that students who do not attend tuition centers do not pass the national examinations.

The War’s Impact on Education in the Northern Province

The Northern Province was granted a provincial council only in 2013 due to the long-standing ethnic conflict between Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese military forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Over 200,000 people lost their lives and more than 1 million people were displaced due to the conflict (Mittal 2015). Even after the war, life for many Tamils in the North remained precarious, owing to large-scale military involvement in civilian affairs (ICG 2012), land grabs, unresolved processes of resettlement (Saparamadu and Lall 2014), unemployment, the agony of searching for disappeared relatives, gender-based violence (Gowrinathan and Cronin-Furman 2015) and the aggressive implementation of development and state-building projects (ICG 2011).

For much of the conflict, violence and a general embargo arrested educational development and student and teacher performance in the Northern Province. The embargo included building materials, school laboratory chemicals, equipment, and materials, including restrictions on fuel to the North. A large number of schools were destroyed or damaged, with nearly half of the 983 total schools in the Northern Province rated “Very Uncongenial” in a 2007 “Congeniality Index” developed by the MOE to determine the condition of school facilities (Ethirveerasingam 2014).

There is considerable variation in school access across and within provinces. Table 4.1 shows the uneven distribution of school types across the 12 zones that comprise the Northern Province. In total, a majority of schools in the North fall under the category of Type II (33%) and Type III (46%) schools. Only 11% of schools are Type 1C, and 10% are Type 1AB. A majority of students who complete primary school in a Type III school will be channeled into schools that offer instruction up to only Grade 11 (Type II schools).

Table 4.1 Number of schools and enrolment by type of school by zone—2015
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Multiple displacements in the North and East, which included the displacement of schools, students, teachers, and parents, stunted teaching and learning. For instance, the inability of staff to pursue higher educational qualifications and take promotion examinations resulted in many teaching and administrative staff holding positions for which they were not prepared. Such administrative staff were given appointments as “Performing” Principal or “Performing” Assistant Director/Deputy Director to fill the vacant positions. Furthermore, the brain drain resulting from the war created an acute shortage of math, science, and English teachers. Immigration and emigration and customs checkpoints and no-man’s lands between the two warring communities prevented teacher training workshops from being held.

The war ended violently in May 2009. The United Nations estimates that more than 40,000 civilian Tamil people were killed and many more were maimed. Approximately 300,000 people from three districts, including students, teachers, and education administrators, were displaced for three to six months. They languished in poorly equipped camps, deprived of adequate nutrition, sanitation and health care, while also suffering from the trauma of witnessing family members injured and killed during the chaotic last phase of war (ICG 2010; Somasundaram 2007). Their freedom of movement outside the camps was restricted. The education administrators and teachers were released after 3 to 4 months. Most of the civilians were released in December 2010, in batches, to return to their place of residence or holding areas near their homes. Most of their homes were destroyed, damaged or occupied by the armed forces. Many educators returned but were not able to start their schools for many reasons including lack of enough students or teachers who had not returned. Schools in army occupied areas were closed until end of December 2015. Many remained without accommodation, livelihood, and counseling for five or more years. All aspects of the education system were affected. It was disabled and continued on survival mode as it had for the previous twenty-plus years.

Principles of Participatory Action Research

Action research methods have been practiced since the early 20th century by a variety of disciplines and philosophical traditions. Two principles of PAR include a commitment to group-based decision making and a commitment to improvement. PAR methods are premised on (1) involving the people living and working in the setting of interest to actively contribute to the research and (2) orienting the research toward enabling change for and by the participants themselves (Kemmis et al. 2014).

Kurt Lewin is often credited with pioneering PAR. In the 1940s, Kurt Lewin and coworker Alec Barvelas discovered the practical gains in workplace efficiency and social relationships made by democratic rather than autocratic processes (Adelman 1997). They found that allowing workers to discuss their problems and make group decisions resulted in consistently higher levels of group morale and productivity. In Lewin’s experimental research, he showed that group participation is vital not just for identifying problems but also for monitoring follow-up action. By regularly reviewing progress on decisions, particular strategies can be completed and new issues can be identified.

Participatory Action Research and Implementation

Participatory research became increasingly popular among development practitioners in the 1970s. Amid growing critiques of top-down policy and program approaches, participatory research methods were introduced to help improve planning and implementation processes (Bowd, Ozerdem & Kassa 2010). Including local communities in designing programs had a number of benefits. Local knowledge would better inform the program design, program ownership would increase the likelihood of program participation, and the process would help build capacity among participants.

Although participatory approaches have become widespread in development rhetoric, their practice is diverse in quality, application, and inclusiveness. In some cases, PAR has been reduced to a set of prescriptive techniques that is more researcher-driven than community-driven (Cooke 2003). Yet there are plenty of examples where participatory research has successfully benefited local communities.

Micro-level participatory approaches are much more common than macro-level models. Robins (2008), for instance, narrated an ethnographic study that took place over six months in postconflict Nepal. He spent two months jointly designing the study with leaders and members of two associations of missing persons. The involvement of the associations led not only to their ownership of the research goals and methodologies but to providing counseling and support to victims’ families. The stories they participated in collecting were used as advocacy tools for victims’ families (Robins 2008). In this case, participants contributed throughout the process of designing and implementing the action research.

Scaling such participatory processes to a macro level is particularly challenging and rare. Kerala’s 1996 “People’s Campaign for Decentralized Planning” offered an insightful example of participatory planning for national development (Chaudhuri 2003). Following India’s 1993 constitutional amendment that enabled devolution of certain planning responsibilities to local governments, Kerala sought to increase local participation in development policy making and budgeting. Biannual grama sabhas (local-level assemblies) were introduced to solicit input into planning and budgeting processes. In its first year, a massive training exercise took place in which about 600 state-level resource persons, 12,000 district-level trainees, 15,000 elected representatives, 25,000 officials, and 75,000 volunteers participated in trainings on using grama sabhas to identify local development problems, generate priorities, and form sector proposals (Chaudhuri 2003). Participation rates in the planning grama sabhas were high (over 10% of the rural electorate) with great participation of historically excluded individuals across two years of the study.

In both of these examples, the act of participation involves identifying or conceptualizing an action and then carrying it out. There is an emphasis on the participatory aspect of the process, but it is unclear whether the time frame of participation is finite or ongoing. In the case of participatory action for policy development, we highlight the importance of participatory implementation in addition to PAR. This necessitates the creation of mechanisms for implementing and monitoring policies in a participatory way. Collaborative reflection should underpin the ongoing implementation, review, and contextualization of policies. It is expected that this will improve accountability and ownership of policy decisions, particularly in contexts where bureaucratic delays and political interference tend to obstruct implementation processes. In order to bring into focus an emphasis on participatory policy implementation, we propose the phrase “participatory action research and implementation.”

Participatory Action Research and Implementation Methods for the Northern Education System Review

Whereas most participatory methods have been carried out in community settings, the NESR was anchored within the Northern Provincial MOE. The NESR sought to incorporate participants within and across the entire primary and secondary education system, inviting all interested individuals to submit their opinions, from government staff to ordinary citizens. In this section, we provide some contextual information about the review process followed by a description of the participatory methods undertaken to conduct the NESR.

For a region that had endured decades of violent conflict, militarization, and control, owning the processes of problem identification, solution making, and implementation was a novel opportunity. The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act as well as 40 years of emergency rule in Sri Lanka vested significant powers in state police and the military, contributing to a sharp rise in arrests and detentions, a culture of impunity, and overt censorship, both by the media and by everyday citizens. Somasundaram (2007) asserted that “the chronic climate of terror, insecurity and uncertainty was a prominent cause of the collective trauma” (p. 12) experienced by Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. His description of life in the North reflects the exhaustion produced by decades of war:

People have learned to simply attend to their immediate needs and survive to the next day. Any involvement or participation carried considerable risk, particularly at the frequent changes in those in power. The repeated displacements, [and] disruption of livelihood have made people dependent on handouts and relief rations. Similar to Seligman’s “learned helplessness,” this dependence hampers rehabilitation and development efforts. People have lost their self-reliance, earlier a hallmark of Tamil society. They have lost their motivation for advancement, progress or betterment. There is a general sense of resignation to fate. People no longer feel motivated to work, or better their lots. (p. 15)

Seen in this context, the NESR methods not only catalyzed educational development but also gave voice to hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and administrators who had long been suppressed by the controlling tendency of the nation-state (Thiranagama 2011). The act of engaging in dialogue about the future of education in northern Sri Lanka helped participants feel that they were beginning to take back control over their lives and communities.

At the same time, conducting participatory research in postconflict environments presented particular challenges. As in many other contexts, “postwar” in Sri Lanka does not equate to “postconflict”. Hence unresolved individual, social, and political disputes are all likely to affect the research process. Indeed, as we discuss later, some NESR policy recommendations became politically challenging to implement.

Studies on postconflict participatory research identify challenges relating to participant access, emotional issues due to the sensitivity of data and how to effectively collect rich data. However, the NESR was unique in that the principal researcher-practitioner, Ethirveerasingam (the coauthor of this chapter), was able to leverage his background in order to facilitate certain aspects of the review. For 20 years, Ethirveerasingam has lived in the North as a volunteer educator and sports activist. Ethirveerasingam is a graduate of Jaffna Central College and is known in Sri Lanka as an Olympian in 1952 and 1956 and for winning the first Asian Games gold medal in 1958. Thus, his influential status as a former athlete, academic, and government advisor positioned him well for leading the NESR and helped minimize issues of access to respondents and politicians. 2

The task of uniting and motivating any heterogeneous group of individuals to collaborate requires extensive trust building and dialogue. One can only imagine how much more challenging this might be in a postwar context. While maintaining sensitivity to various power differentials, Ethirveerasingam drew from his personal roots as a Jaffna Tamil as well as his professional background to facilitate the review process. His work of guiding groups to debate issues and identify solutions was further facilitated by the historically high value that Tamils in northern Sri Lanka have placed on education. Colonial and missionary education reached Jaffna as early as the 16th century, and Tamil intellectuals had long ago popularized the instrumental role that schools play in habituating students and constructing a public sphere (Ambalavanar 2006). More recently, value for education also became strongly associated with the desire to gain private sector employment, which has greatly outpaced public sector jobs in the era after economic liberalization (Little and Evans 2005). Thus, participants’ strong commitment to addressing educational inequalities helped build a sense of motivation, solidarity, and focus from the start of the process.

The involvement of the Tamil diaspora, numbering over 1 million people across more than 30 countries, was also of considerable significance, although they comprised only a small number of participants. The Sri Lankan diaspora has remained a major stakeholder in northern provincial development (Vimalarajah and Cheran 2010). There is much to gain from Tamil diaspora members, particularly those who have developed powerful levels of social, human, and economic capital and are motivated to contribute their knowledge and experience to develop their ancestral land. At the same time, involving diaspora members necessitates careful management of power differentials. As Fals Borda (1995) cautioned: “Do not monopolize your knowledge nor impose arrogantly your techniques but respect and combine your skills with the knowledge of the researched or grassroots communities, taking them as full partners and co-researchers.” It was in this spirit that correspondence with members of the diaspora took place as part of the NESR.

Formation of Study Coordinators

The review process commenced with the first meeting of senior staff of the Northern Provincial MOE and Department of Education, held on October 22, 2013, under the chairmanship of the Northern Province minister of education. At this meeting, six coordinators were selected to form six subcommittees with 10 members each. The subcommittees were given the option of inviting additional persons. Their mandate was to identify and analyze the issues in the Northern Province Education System and propose recommendations. The members formed the steering committee of the NESR. A secretariat was also formed to assist the facilitator, Dr. Ethirveerasingam, and the steering committee.

Each of the six coordinators and their subcommittees took on the responsibility of investigating one of these areas:

  1. 1.

    Teaching, learning, and teacher education

  2. 2.

    Student–teacher discipline and counseling

  3. 3.

    Teachers’ and administrators’ issues

  4. 4.

    Finance, staff requirements, expenditure and teacher salaries

  5. 5.

    Education administrative structure and alternatives

  6. 6.

    e-Planning database, research, and development

At the first meeting, steering committee members came to an agreement that the review would focus on participatory processes that considered the child as the center of the education system. They also agreed to consider only those recommendations that enhanced children’s physical and emotional growth, learning, and performance in their social and cultural context. These guiding principles helped inform processes for soliciting opinions and recommendations from those who were and are stakeholders in the education system. Individuals who were part of the system in the past, whether currently in the North or living elsewhere, were invited to participate.

Focus Group Discussions

Separate daylong meetings were planned and held with stakeholders in the Northern Province. They were Tamil-speaking parents, teachers, students, and zonal directors selected from the 12 zonal directorates. The same took place with Sinhala-speaking parents, teachers, and students, selected by the principals and zonal directors from South Vavuniya and Manal Aru (Weli Oya). The students were also given an opportunity to submit concerns about their education anonymously.

Inviting Submissions Through Multiple Mediums

An advertisement was placed in various public newspapers inviting submissions, observations, and/or recommendations, anonymously or otherwise, on the areas identified above via regular post or email or by submitting an online form. 3 All submissions were addressed to the facilitator, who reviewed and considered each submission, whether it arrived before or after the deadline expired. An additional advertisement to this effect was also placed in all the Tamil and Sinhala newspapers. 4

Oral submissions at the workshop from those who had not responded to the advertisement were discouraged. Their written submissions were reviewed first by the facilitator and then by the respective groups for consideration. All submissions that had a return address were acknowledged. Personal issues and complaints were noted and referred to the relevant office. Some of the individuals who had detailed firsthand knowledge of the problems and submitted viable solutions were invited to participate in the relevant group discussions.

In addition, the minister, facilitator, and a select committee invited three groups of students, teachers, and parents separately to listen to their problems and ideas for solutions. The groups were invited from Jaffna Education Zone, Vavunia North Education Zone, and two Sinhala medium schools in Vavuniaya South and Manal Aru (Weli Oya) from Mullaitivu Education Zone. Much was learned from the fruitful and enthusiastic group discussions that ensued from these forums.

The issues raised by the submissions and interviews from the public and stakeholders were reviewed by the facilitator, acknowledged, and submitted to the six coordinators through the Steering Committee Secretariat. The submissions are all currently on file at the MOE. After reading through all of the submissions, the facilitator categorized them into the following areas:

  • On students

  • On teachers

  • On use of computers and teaching materials

  • On curricula and examinations

  • On principals

  • On schools and school environment

  • On school community environment

  • On parents and home environment

  • On ministry and education administration

Documentation and Presentation of Findings

A first draft report was written, reviewing each of the six areas identified earlier in a separate chapter. Each chapter presented the consensus on the current situation, identified special areas of concern, and recommended solutions for implementation immediately (six months), in the short term (one year), and midterm (three years).

The first draft was discussed by a larger membership of the Steering Committee in late January 2014. On the advice of that committee, the focus groups were then expanded to 11. Each group presented its findings and recommendations twice. These were improved upon each time. The groups presented their cumulative observations and recommendations at the consultation workshop on April 23 and 24, 2014.

Symposium

A symposium was held in April 2014 to consider the draft report and the recommendations of the 11 groups. The national minister of education, directors responsible for various departments at the national Ministry of Education and directors of the National Institute of Education were invited and participated in the three-day symposium. Those invited from universities in Sri Lanka and the United States, who were not able to attend, submitted their inputs by email. Emeritus Professor Angela Little from the University of London, Institute of Education gave her input in a meeting in Colombo. Additional participants included the Steering Committee, school principals, tertiary institution and university staff, representatives from the community at large, and those who contributed by mail and email.

In total, over 300 people attended the symposium, engaged in dialogue in the 11 groups, and approved the final recommendations. The recommendations were then revised, and a final draft was approved by the Steering Committee before it was printed and released on July 17, 2014 at a ceremony and on the EMIS website (www.edudept.np.gov.lk).

Recommendation Implementation and Monitoring Panel

The review process generated 245 recommendations aimed at improving teaching, learning, and the education system. Out of those, 130 of them could be administered or implemented by the zonal directors, staff, and schools without cost or approval from other authorities. Many of the recommendations stated the need for more efficiency in educational administration. This chapter’s appendix contains 10 of the recommendations being implemented by the Northern Province secretary of education and the provincial director of education and give a glimpse of the issues facing teaching and learning in schools, especially schools that are in the rural area of the Northern Province. Seventeen recommendations needed directives and instruction from the Northern Province secretary of education and the Northern Province director of education. Only the recommendation for appointing new positions in the system needed the approval of the National MOE.

Recognizing that the system was overloaded and in order to ensure follow-up action, the Steering Committee and the symposium recommended the establishment of an independent Recommendation Implementation and Monitoring Panel (RIMP). A board consisting of some members of the Steering Committee and members from the community was established with an executive committee reporting to the board. The minister chaired the board and the secretary for education and the director of education were members.

The establishment of the RIMP board and the following recommendations required approval from the Northern Province board of ministers and the governor:

  • New zonal administration in the Thunukkai Zone as a pilot project

  • Establishing an Institute of Tamil Medium Education

  • Establishing a substitute teacher system

RIMP was allocated space and staffed to form a secretariat. It is to function until the end of 2018 and should complete implementing all recommendations. RIMP formed five subcommittees consisting of 10 to 15 members:

  1. 1.

    Psychosocial well-being

  2. 2.

    Education management information system (EMIS)

  3. 3.

    Research and publication

  4. 4.

    New zonal administrative system

  5. 5.

    Institute of Tamil Medium Education

Two more subcommittees are to be established for preschool education and special education. It is the responsibility of the subcommittees to make decisions and implement the recommendations under the guidance of the RIMP executive committee.

To provide an idea of the type of analysis and recommendations generated by the participatory review process, in the next sections, we describe three of the areas reviewed by the Steering Committee.

I. Teaching, Learning, and Examinations (National)

There are three national examinations that all students have to take:

  1. 1.

    The Grade 5 (Age 10) Scholarship examination is used to award admission to leading schools and to provide scholarships. It was originally intended to grant scholarships and admission to leading schools for students in need.

  2. 2.

    The Grade 11 (Age 16) General Certificate of Education, Ordinary Level (GCE O/L) determines admission to Grade 12 when a required number of passes and credit passes are obtained in given subjects. Approximately 50% of students who take the GCE O/L go on to Grade 12. Others are pushed out of the school system.

  3. 3.

    The Grade 13 (Age 18) General Certificate of Education, Advanced Level (GCE A/L) determines admission to universities, in one of the four streams that are offered, and to colleges of education. Admission is based on both merit and district quotas. Quotas are set based on the degree of disadvantage among districts. Z scores are used as cut-off points for admissions. Approximately 60% qualify for admissions. Out of that, a lesser number of students are admitted to universities depending on space availability. The remaining 40% can enter vocational or technical institutes at the tertiary level based on their performance on the A/L examination.

    GCE O/L and A/L examinations generally test knowledge and comprehension. Very few or no questions test for application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation abilities. Teaching is mostly in the classroom, and chalk and talk is the method preferred by teachers. There is hardly any interaction between students and teachers, even when computers and internet access is available. Teachers ask rhetorical questions that a few students answer in chorus. No questions are initiated by students and teachers do not encourage students to ask questions. There are no practical examinations, and teachers spend very little time doing anything practical, although some demonstrate some practice in science classes.

    Provinces set the term and end-of-year examinations for all grades other than Grade 5, Grade 11 GCE O/L, and Grade 13 GCE A/L. Tests by the provinces duplicate past national examinations. National examinations are composed in Sinhala or English and then translated into Tamil. Often the translation in Tamil is longer than the other two languages. In multiple-choice questions, questions and answer choices are so long they are often difficult to understand. The teaching methods are dictated by the national examinations questions, where rote learning and reproduction is rewarded.

    For many lessons during the year and especially during the last two months of the year, all teachers in all subjects focus on teaching to answer questions from past exams. The education department produces question papers and distributes them so that teachers will drill the students to get a high pass rate. The parents and the system demand this practice. Such is the learning and teaching process not only in the North but in schools across the country.

    A province has no powers to alter national examinations, although it can recommend the need for change. University education faculty have made recommendations, but no appreciable changes have taken place.

    RIMP, with the assistance of a nonprofit organization called SERVE eLearning Institute (www.servelearn.org), distributed DVDs on mathematics and science lessons for Grades 10 and 11 (last two years of the GCE O/L) to 150 schools and trained teachers to use them with computers for teaching and learning. The e-lessons have illustrations, diagrams, animation, and interactive questions. The lessons were tested, and the learning improved twofold based on trials in schools and students’ GCE O/L results. Teacher trainers were trained to train teachers in 500 more schools. Schools with computer laboratories let students learn on their own assisted by the teacher. Those that have one computer and a multimedia projector use the DVD and teach students using the e-lessons. There are e-lessons for all grades in Sinhala and English produced by the MOE and the National Institute of education, but only a few lessons in some grades have been produced in Tamil.

    Due to the failure to train Tamil staff in curriculum and teaching aids development, the NESR review recommended the establishment of an Institute of Tamil Medium Education. The Northern Province board of ministers and the governor approved the proposal. The national MOE and the National Institute of Education also supported the recommendations. The Institute of Tamil Medium Education is in the process of being established.

II. Psychosocial Well-Being of Students and Teachers: Student–Teacher Discipline, Classroom Management and Counseling

Rote teaching learning methods and examination pressure from the system, parents, principals, and teachers leads to boredom and stress among students. Compounded with the trauma of war, this leads to student misbehavior in classrooms. Teachers routinely practice corporal punishment. In the 1940s and 1950s, when coauthor Ethirveerasingam was in school in Jaffna, there was no corporal punishment in schools, although in extreme circumstances, the principal and vice principal were authorized to use a cane on a student’s palm. Such caning was a rare occurrence. Although corporal punishment did exist in schools before the 1940s, it became prevalent in most schools by the 1970s. Research on this subject is taboo, as most of the schools and teachers, both male and female, practice it.

An informal survey of 40 students in Grade 10 and 11 by the coauthor revealed that canings take place twice or three times per day. Mainly a stick is used for caning, but often male teachers use their hands to beat male students and a stick to hit female students. The reverse is true for female teachers. The two months before the GCE O/L examinations, October and November, are times when corporal punishment occurs most often. Students and teachers are under stress to finish the syllabus, and memorization techniques are used for “drilling knowledge” into students.

In the face-to-face meetings that were conducted with parents, teachers, and students, the minister put the question of corporal punishment to all three groups. The teachers did not admit or deny that they use corporal punishment to manage classroom misbehavior. The parents wanted the teachers to hit their children if they misbehaved. None of the groups of students responded to the questions nor did they write about it when given a chance to identify problems in learning. One student did respond by saying that he did not want to talk negatively about his school.

Repeated instructions to stop corporal punishment have been sent to teachers since 1927. The last most important circular on making corporal punishment in schools illegal was sent in 2005 and again in 2012. Principals and teachers ignored it. The same circular was sent to principals and teachers by the Northern Provincial Ministry in August 2015, and the principals and teachers signed on to it. Plans to monitor corporal punishment in schools are under way.

Based on physicians’ presentations to teachers and administrators, there has been a rise of drugs and alcohol consumption by students since the end of the war. Pregnancy among school children and teenagers has also increased after the war, as compared to before or during the war. Teachers have been advised to include education on reproductive health and the implications of teenage pregnancy for girls, the child, and their parents. Abortions and giving birth outside the home has led to increased deaths among children and teenage unmarried mothers since the end of the war.

The Psychosocial Well-being Committee, composed of psychologists, psychiatrists, parents, teachers with counseling experience, and administrators, commissioned the SERVE eLearning Institute to produce a DVD on classroom management. It was reviewed by members of the Psychosocial Well-being Committee. Six thousand DVDs were produced and distributed to principals and teachers. The committee has started workshops for psychologists and qualified counselors to train trainers to train the 15,000 teachers in the system on counseling and classroom management. In addition, each of the schools will have drop-in centers called mahilaham (a place to relax and enjoy activities) for students and staff. Fourteen mahilagams have already been established. The centers will be used for recreation as well as for counseling and guidance by trained counselors. Every school with 300 or more students is to have a counselor. So far, 78 counselors have been appointed.

III. New Zonal Administration—Thunukkai Zone

Decision-making is centralized in the national MOE. In 2013, with the election and forming of the Northern Provincial Council, more decision-making was devolved to the Province. Unfortunately, the provincial MOE and the provincial department of education still control the recruitment and deployment of teachers and principals. Disparities in educational achievement across schools will be difficult to address unless zonal administrations take on this function.

Most of the teachers in the Northern Province are from the Jaffna District, where western formal education dates back 200 years. Students at universities and colleges of education are mostly from schools in Jaffna, which has almost half the population of the Northern Province. Since teachers, principals, and administrators are primarily from the Jaffna District, they do not like to be posted to other districts. However, to fill the teaching positions, the system depends on mandatory transfers to rural schools. Most teachers find ways, mostly through nepotism, to return to schools in their district. This leads to many classes in rural schools without teachers or with teachers who are not qualified in mathematics, science, and English. For this reason, rural schools achieve only half, and in many cases one quarter, of the pass rates of the many leading schools in the Jaffna District.

The New Zonal Administration is being piloted in the Thunukkai Zone. It will have a zonal board of education that will take over decision making by the Northern MOE, except for curricula, examinations, pensions, and the like. The zonal board of education (ZBE) will do all recruitment and termination of teachers and principals. Thunukkai is the only education zone in Sri Lanka that is trying the New Zonal Administration.

An awareness program was conducted by Dr. N. Ethirveerasingam, Additional Provincial Director Mr. K. Premakanthan, Zonal Director Mr. S. Krishnakumar and staff to the principals of schools in the Thunukkai Zone on the bylaws of the ZBE. Parents and community leaders in the Thunukkai Zone also participated in the same program. They then elected representatives, 10 of whom were elected for the ZBE. Elections were held during a ZBE meeting. Meetings were held to brief principals about selecting 44 student representatives from each of the different school types, half girls and half boys. An awareness program and the bylaws workshop was held for the students. Many questions were posed and discussions held. Students were encouraged to answer their own questions. All unanimously expressed that it was the first time someone asked their opinion and asked them to answer their own questions.

The 44 student representatives also elected three girls and three boys as members of the ZBE. The minister, the secretary, and the provincial director appointed 10 members to make up the 26-member ZBE. All 26 members were briefed on their responsibilities and authority. Also, one hour of their meetings was open to the public living in the Thunukkai Zone to present issues in writing or in person.

Participatory Action Research and Implementation: Reflections, Challenges, and Limitations

As mentioned at the opening of this chapter, the exclusion of communities and educational personnel from long-term development processes became normalized over decades of war, political conflict, and extensive involvement of foreign aid agencies in northern Sri Lanka. Thus, the invitation to contribute toward improving the NP education system through the NESR was an unexpected, empowering process for all who participated. This section discusses some reflections, challenges, and limitations of PARI methods undertaken for the NESR.

Strengths

The PARI process that characterized the NESR was a momentous undertaking for a number of reasons. First, it created a democratic, collaborative opportunity for people in northern Sri Lanka to express their feelings, views, and ideas in a postwar context marked by uncertainty and vulnerability due to the long years of multiple displacement and living in camps while community and family social norms and structures broke down. People were told what to do and were herded. For many3 people, PARI enabled a greater sense of confidence and purpose simply because someone had asked them their opinion for the first time. In many ways, it changed the participants just as much as it changed aspects of the education system (Fals Borda 1995; Kemmis and McTaggart 2005). Second, participation was open to all stakeholders of the education system, irrespective of their location geographically or hierarchically. Many participants and Steering Committee members enthusiastically contributed countless volunteer hours, enabling a tremendous amount of work to be accomplished for a very low budget (around $27,000). Third, taking action through the RIMP brought the research process full circle and helped ensure follow up in an overburdened system.

The significance of the participatory NESR process can be further understood when considering the exclusionary approach typical of many past government and donor initiatives. The 1000 Secondary Schools Development Program, for example, is the main national educational development program planned for 2012 to 2016. The program will equip 1000 schools with science, language, mathematics, and information and communication technology laboratories. However, while the technological upgrade of schools is commendable, the selective inclusion of only about one-third of the over 2775 secondary schools (Type 1AB and 1C) in the country is sure to increase disparity across schools. Enhanced facilities to conduct practical experiments will be available only for some school students preparing for national exams. In the Northern Province, only 90 out of 196 1AB and 1C schools (46%) will be provided with the new technology facilities.

The insensitivity of agencies such as the Asian Development Bank further demonstrates the biased development projects that people in northern Sri Lanka have repeatedly witnessed. On June 4, 2014, the Sri Lankan newspaper, Daily Financial Times, reported that the bank translated the Khan Academy and MathCloud e-learning programs into Sinhala under a $725,000 grant. Twenty schools would pilot the program for six months to assess its impact on student performance. It is astounding that after a 30-year war, the Asian Development Bank would choose to fund a project that so blatantly discriminates against the Tamil-speaking communities, especially as it is widely agreed that language was one of the root causes of the war. To translate the learning material into Sinhala only, without at the same time providing Tamil translations, disenfranchises the Tamil-speaking people on the island. International donors should be more cognizant of the effects of their policies and programs and ensure that they do not create or exacerbate conflict. The Asian Development Bank should develop its own conflict filter, especially for education projects.

Challenges and Limitations of the Participatory Implementation Process

Participatory processes require a sustained commitment to dialogue, decision making, and follow-up implementation. These values and behaviors do not often present themselves spontaneously in individuals. More often, they are learned over time, through experience, and with the support of an enabling environment.

Participatory decision-making for implementation in countries that have been under colonial administration for many years—350 years in the case of Sri Lanka, which was also earlier a feudal system of government—is a rather foreign practice. In addition to such a history, the Northern Province was also subject to authoritarian rule by the government and the rebels over the past 30 years. Such a legacy did not prepare the education administrators, teachers, principals, and the general public to accept, take responsibility for, and dedicate themselves to implement new approaches in education and governance.

The key recommendations that required staff and recurrent budgets needed approval from the Northern Province board of ministers and the governor. Both approved the implementation of the key recommendations in August 2015. However, there were difficulties in implementation due to bureacratic delays in obtaining funds. Implementation with participation from the various units of the Northern Province Education Department began again only in December 2015. Furthermore, although the e-learning materials were produced, there were severe delays in planning and implementing teacher training sessions.

There were also systemic challenges relating to the capacity of Education Department staff. Those charged with making decisions to organize and direct the implementation were often unwilling to take up the challenge. The dedication needed to work cooperatively and efficiently to adopt innovative solutions seemed inadequate. Also, the system uses what is termed “performing” to post persons to positions for which they are not officially qualified. Such staff members were teachers and came with the salary of the teacher cadre. They had little or no experience in educational planning, finance, or curriculum development. Meanwhile, the teacher cadre in the school where they came from stayed vacant.

Finally, individuals who opposed the project hampered the new Zonal Board of Education, which was to function as a pilot project in Thunukkai Zone in the Mullaitivu District. The multiple seminars for zonal staff, parents, teachers, students, and principals on the responsibilities and the bylaws of the Zonal Board were well received. Elections were held to elect representatives of students, parents, community members, and the Northern MOE. All of this was done with the approval of the 30-member board of the RIMP. Concrete plans were even made to inaugurate the New Zonal Board of Education for the Thunukkai Zone by the governor of the Northern Province. However, a small group of individuals did not want the zonal board inaugurated. They raised the issue with their members of the provincial council and parliament, who in turn brought the issue to the chief minister. He instructed the Northern Province minister of education to postpone the inauguration. After the inauguration was suspended at the end of May 2016, at last on December 8, 2016, the Governor of the Northern Province inaugurated the Zonal Board of Education.

The NESR explicitly sought to include as many stakeholders of the education system as possible, but there were limitations. One limitation was that international education specialists and educators from other provinces in Sri Lanka could not be invited due to reasons beyond the facilitator’s control. Another limitation was in attracting an equal number of males and females to participate in the review process. School principals were tasked with selecting students for face-to-face meetings. Although due consideration was made for both Sinhala and Tamil speakers, a larger number of males than females participated in the review. This reflected the existing gender imbalance in teaching and educational administration. 5

Despite these limitations, the NESR mobilized a diverse range of participants, all of whom have a stake in seeing that the recommendations are properly monitored and implemented. RIMP was organically formed as part of the overall NESR process. The Steering Committee members and many stakeholders recommended the creation of RIMP when they foresaw the risk of inefficiency and nonimplementation, which is endemic in the northern provincial education system. Toward this end, a secretariat was formed to carry out the functions of RIMP. As discussed in the three example recommendations we described, RIMP will be responsible for monitoring a wide range of follow-up action, from conducting teacher trainings to establishing drop-in counseling centers to pilot testing a new zonal administration.

Conclusion

This chapter documented the participatory action research and implementation process that sought to transform the northern provincial education system. PARI allows for a holistic process, enabling a constantly fluctuating focus on both research and implementation. It is particularly effective in educational policy development contexts, where bottom-up approaches tend to be more the exception than the norm.

The National Education Commission has invited RIMP for a meeting to explore the possibility of replicating the NESR in other provinces. It will also consider incorporating within its policy framework the principles of some of the NESR recommendations that are common to all provinces, especially those that have a high rural population. The chairman of tertiary education and vocational technical education will also be meeting with RIMP members to plan for implementation of the NESR recommendations related to vocational and technical education. It is possible that students who are not continuing to tertiary education can stay in school for another two years after upper secondary grades until they are 18 and learn job skills rather than be pushed out of the school system at 16 years. In Northern Sri Lanka and island-wide, participatory implementation of the NESR recommendations is slow and difficult. However, promising signs are present. RIMP was invited for a meeting with the National Education Commission (NEC) to explore the possibility of replicating the NESR in other provinces. Furthermore, according to personal communications with the Chairman of the NEC, many of the policies in the National Education Commission’s 2017–2018 report, which was handed to the President of Sri Lanka on January 26th, 2017, have incorporated recommendations found in the NESR report. Indeed, implementation of the NESR recommendations is very slow, but taking place.

Appendix

Ten recommendations being implemented by the NP secretary of education and the Northern Province director of education:

  1.  1.

    Grade 1 and 6 enrollment to be limited to 30 + 2 starting January 2015. Total number of students in Grades 6 to Grades 13 schools is limited to 1500.

  2.  2.

    Schools with enrollment less than 200 and with student–teacher ratio less than 20:1 should be amalgamated with schools with students less than 100.

  3.  3.

    Corporal Punishment is banned in all schools in the North. The Principals should give a Weekly email report to the Secretary, PDE with a copy to Chairman of RIMP of the teachers who used corporal punishment in their classroom and in the school premises and the reasons the teacher gave and the reasons the student gave. The Principal should maintain a Corporal Punishment Record Book.

  4.  4.

    Every school should assign private space and establish a Counseling, academic and employment guidance for schools with enrollment of 300 or more is approved.

  5.  5.

    Grade 13 attendance register should be signed by all students and teachers in all 1AB schools. Attendance shall be monitored till June 30 of each year and the percentage of attendance of students required to sit for the examination will be calculated from January to June. July can be Independent Study in or out of school.

  6.  6.

    The 90 schools with 40 computers, a Mathematics and Language laboratories, to be open to use by schools in the Zones after-school hours including Saturdays for teaching science, Mathematics, English and IT. This is a condition in the 1000 school implementation process.

  7.  7.

    All students should take-part in outdoor physical education activity three days a week during the last period of the school day. One day per week can be reserved in the classes or Halls indoors for Yoga.

  8.  8.

    Schools that have excess teachers in any of the subjects over and above the Cadres required for teaching those subjects should be released from their duties from that school and posted to the PDE Office and referred to the Secretary.

  9.  9.

    Teachers in any school will be paid with the funds from that school allocation only. One school allocation for a teaching position should not be used to pay for another teacher posted to another school in excess or otherwise.

  10. 10.

    No classrooms should be without a teacher. Until those positions are filled, qualified Substitute Teachers should be appointed temporarily on a daily basis.

    Source: Ethirveerasingam, N. (2014). Northern education system review. Jaffna, Sri Lanka: Northern Province Ministry of Education.

Notes

  1. 1.

    In 1961, the government of Mrs. Bandaranaike nationalized all schools. Some Catholic and Anglican mission schools chose not to be part of the government school system. All capital and recurrent expenditures, including salaries, were denied to such schools. When the government of Dudley Senanayake was elected in 1964, it partially restored assistance to schools that opted to operate their schools with private funds. The government paid salaries, textbooks, supplies, and uniforms. They were then called assisted schools, although they were governed by their own school board and recruited their own teachers.

  2. 2.

    Ethirveerasingam also drew from his previous experience in a participatory study for education reform and policy making in Sierra Leone in 1970–1971. At the time, he was a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Niala University College, University of Sierra Leone. The study collected problems, issues, and ideas through interviews with schools, teachers, principals, parents, and community leaders at a total of six colleges. The Sierra Leone Ministry of Education directly implemented the recommendations, yet there was no independent participatory implementation or monitoring of the recommendations.

  3. 3.

    http://tinyurl.com/npereview.

  4. 4.

    Francis Cody (2009) has written about the dramatic growth of a newspaper reading culture among South Indian Tamils. Similar findings are likely applicable to Sri Lankan Tamils who have a shared literary heritage with Indian Tamils.

  5. 5.

    Feminization of the teaching workforce has existed in Sri Lanka since independence. A UNESCO (2011) study on women and the teaching profession showed that around 70% of teachers in public schools both across Sri Lanka and in three districts of the North (Jaffna, Killinochchi, and Mannar) were female. At the same time, only 23% of schools in Jaffna and 29% of schools in Mannar had female principals. Data were not available on female school principals in Killinochchi. Overall, gender representation among participants was biased toward males.