Hiran De Silva in Facebook, where the title was different [& has disappeared ..FB style]
Fresh Serious consideration for the president’s attention: [given that] both attempts at extensive reforms by PM Harini, although noble in thought, are extremely premature.
1. She should have stopped at just introducing two elective subjects, “the Constitution” and “Fundamentals of economics” for the STEM stream for A/L that may count for the Z-score, if taken.
2. Postpone “Corporal punishment” laws.
3. Set up a pathway for NQV level-6 students to obtain a Bachelor of Applied Science degree by credits, a case study submission and a viva-voce.
4. Encourage at least one school from each district to set up classes for leading Vendor certifications for IT ( Asure, AWS, GCP, CompTIA, SAP, and many Cybersecurity certifications)
5. Re-introduce, woodworking, metal working, pottery craft, electrician, plumber training for O/L at least during the blank period of O/L and releasing result. This will keep most youngsters in the relavively safer school enviorenment rather than in the wilderness of tution classes, where most harfull habits are aquired.
Credits earned at school level for these courses, should carry on for the Z-score. That will ensure acedemically not-so-bright but practically versatile students to obtain higher Z-Scores.
That may have an unexpected bonus of students falling in love with school life again like we did, and considering private tution only as a side support.
Thus, the country will be blessed with a well rounded young generation again.
(I vividly recall the wood workshop, metal workshop, pottery workshop, motor mechanism workshop in my school during the 1976-82 period, in which we were eager trainees.)
Now, we have engineers who cannot even change a light bulb, change a plug base, change a spark plug or prime a domestic water pump without some help from Google, even then, it would be a miracle to get it done without injuring themselves. Only a few can even setup a ladder properly.
We may be the last generation that benefited enormously from the childhood training we received that stayed with us for life. Such training proved so helpful in many instances in our diverse careers as well as work around the house, specially when one is oversease for work, left at the mercy of your own devices only.
If thse reforms are done in the short term, the pressure on the regular academic universities will dwindle soon. Almost all of NVQ students will find self-employment and own thriving businesses in no time. When those success stories spread, due recognition will dawn on those jobs just like it is in the developed world.
( The Govt must remove all taxes for hand tools and workshop machinery)
Coming back to Minister Herath, I hope he may have a better ear to the ground to sense what educational reforms are needed in the short to medium term than PM Harini.
The world needs tradesmen and technicians far more than top engineers, with the rapid advent of AI to do almost all activities an engineer or a doctor or an Accountant could do, even to the extent of cardiac surgery.
If someone chooses to pursue High academic pathways, it would nessasitate going right up to research studies in frontier technologies, as during the next 1-2 decades, AI-driven Robotic machines, either fully or partially autonomous, will take over factories and even designing aspect of everythig.
One will only have to “prompt” the needed outcome, and the AI would do the rest.
For that purpose, one essential skill that everyone should learn is “Prompt Engineering” – which may become the only real adedemic skill needed in the future.
Only other vocational skill set demanded by future employers would be practical and manual tradesmen skills.
This government should prepare the students for such a world to prevent them losing that bus too.
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There is nothing more to add. Education reforms cannot and should not be done on a piecemeal basis. It has to be comprehensive after taking a holistic view. There cannot be 3 different streams, i.e, General Education, Higher Education, Vocational Education. There should be a single pathway. Examination should not be a sieve to drop out winners. Our education system is producing more losers and dropouts. Thank you very much, the writer and Michael, for your very encouraging, positive timely intervention