Education should be changed to suit business environment

Education should be changed to suit business environment

Chandra Embuldeniya

Daily News Debate

EDUCATION: The editorial under the caption ‘Blighted seats of learning’ on Daily News (July 11) enunciates a perfect way to move forward eradicating higher education malaise. The editorial is based on the assessment made by Prof. Wiswa Warnapala, Minister of Higher Education on the perpetual troubles facing our university education system.

It presents an accurate assessment of the situation and the only solution to many of our problems in brief. The solution I believe is most crucial for future development of our nation. The solution to higher education malaise would encapsulate the whole gamut of economic development of the nation and revitalize it.

In my brief outline below, I intend bringing out a few illustrations of experiences gained from my association with the higher education sector in Sri Lanka to justify the editor’s conclusions. Most of our university students are coerced to become anti social by a handful of politically driven persons who are aiming for power in future.

The aim of these persons is to create joblessness and keep the country underdeveloped until they come to power. They want to create a large base of government employees obliging to their whims while someday perhaps they would hold the entire country to ransom by crippling government services.

Their strategic aim is to disable the majority students so as not to fit into the engine of growth, the private sector, with skills and knowledge needed. They deprive the country of the spirit and skills needed for innovations to add value to our resources.

Under the guise of free education, 17 per cent of the cohort of qualified students enters the university system each year while 83 per cent are deprived of a convenient opportunity to earn a degree with the blessings of the State.

The small number that gets into the university are so coerced into being docile anti social and herded into dancing to a rhythm that suits the aspirations of even a smaller group of anti social elements at the expense of taxpayer.

The parents are unaware and even if they are aware, they cannot respond due to fears and helplessness. It is time we realise the nation’s development imperatives to rectify the malaise affecting higher education.

A nation has to depend on a group of pioneering people who are knowledgeable in technology, science, engineering, medicine, humanities and fine arts to take us to a higher level of value addition to the economic resources of our country. It demands a spirit of technological and business innovation and enterprise, just as many other nations have seen during their development process.

This means the pioneers have to emerge from society including academia, business persons, politicians, artists and media persons. All these people begin as students some day until they take up pioneering roles in innovation and development activity.

This process would become possible only if students are ready to learn and allow others to learn in an environment conducive for such activity. Our universities could not provide such an environment due to the violent student agitations and harassment of the spirited innocents.

The violence is brought about by a few well-trained individuals who are perhaps led by paid activists to create instability. Mostly, these are activists driven by political groups motivated to take power in the country as happened in the past.

It is so sad that the persons leading this movement in the country are using their craft to subvert the young minds and push their wily theories and approaches aiming to destabilize universities. Strategies adopted by the universities to produce a learned citizenry are neutralized effectively by these anti social elements.
Unaware

As the editorial implies the parents are unaware of what is going on in the universities. Even if they knew, they are unable to stop the rot because the innocent want to stay aloof to the problem fearing reprisals.

It is important for every parent to know the strategies adopted by these enemies of society. They first identify the students who have parental problems or other debilitating problems from their school days.

Then these young men and women are drawn in tactfully through various means where they are trained on how to lead and take over. The training begins at the school. As expected, a few of these trained students find their way into the universities.

Once they are in the university, the process is very swift with each hand picked one being given a role to play equipped with mobile phones and allowances for participation and activism. Their main task is to identify issues that present opportunities for agitation.

They also play roles in organising students for various occasions with cultural, religious and social importance. Ragging is one of the principal means of pacifying and silencing students and establishing dominance over any alternate movements. With these activities, they identify themselves as leaders and wait for their turn.

Typically, these issues are dealt by administrations in universities in a manner keeping with policy and in keeping with available resources. Principal issues are hostels, accommodation, food, and a host of welfare issues. Sometimes issues related to academic, religious and social issues arise.

These students expect everything to be done according to their dictates to the authorities. No matter how logical is the action proposed by the university they would not stop short of agitation.

Even when they know that, the authorities are working on solutions they take it upon themselves to agitate to give the impression as if the solutions are being brought about due to their agitation. They would use these issues to silence those other students wishing to develop a future with positive action.
Anti - social

It is a prime objective of these anti social student elements to create an environment for depriving students passing out getting any lucrative jobs particularly in the private sector.

As a result, our students passing from universities prefer government jobs promising pensions and permanency even if salaries are half the private sectors offering. They prefer to work less typical for the public sector as opposed to hard work one has to produce in the private sector.

They want to draw students onto a platform to participate in ‘Satyagraha’ or ‘Fasting’ to get attention to issues including joblessness and persuade governments to give them any job however unproductive it may be.

The pattern of agitations will prolong after securing jobs to enhance salaries, then creating high salary scales, promotions etc. This process carves out a niche in an unproductive jobless society for the perpetrators of this anti social movement representing themselves as the sole liberators of the educated masses.

Private sector is the acclaimed engine of growth in a country. These students have no perception of an engine of growth. They think government is the engine of production. Government produces various statutory services and it is seemingly trying hard to improve quality, efficiency, productivity and finally, effectiveness of their services.

However, do they produce goods? I am afraid not. Whenever and wherever governments get into the kind of production for most common markets the governments have failed and been a cost to society than a catalyst for development.
Free education

This trend eventually fills up jobs in a country where high production and productivity are needed with docile pen pushers producing no outcomes of a high value. These are passengers in an economy already burdened with a load of enemies of various colours and shapes. We have not sufficiently understood or taken counter action against these enemies.

We should find ways of getting them to put their shoulder to the wheel rather than allowing them to sit comfortably with pension bearing jobs at taxpayers’ expense. Behind all this is our education system producing such inert people offensive to society. Unless we stop this now we are going to add greater inefficiency at the government level.

Let free education continue but let the opportunity be given to those parents who want children educated to their satisfaction to have a choice. The parents have a choice when children are schooling.

They choose to give private tuition and nowadays many parents try to send children to private schools and do not worry about the local university, as they seem to have lost confidence in this failing system. These parents prefer their children doing some technical education or professional education.

As such, freedom of education is practised but free education is a myth. Because we believe in this myth, we have made our country one of the poorest, while most other nations in the region have moved far ahead and continuing to progress economically.

The entire nation is being held to ransom by a handful of these wily people holding sway in higher education sector. These anti social elements are getting free education at government expense to hold the country to ransom.

It is clear from statistics that around 130,000 qualify to gain admissions to our universities although we receive only around 35,000 applications expecting to gain admissions. It is an equivalent of 27 per cent. Finally, less than 20,000 are selected. Thus, only 16 per cent of the qualified are getting a place in the university system under free education.

The survival number is less due universities carrying many unfilled vacancies due to dropouts. This number is much smaller when compared with the actual number sitting A/Levels. What happens to the balance 84 per cent who are also qualified to have a university education?

They blame this free education. At least if those passing out from the universities through this process become so good then our country should flourish with knowledgeable and skillful people.

This is not happening as long as the system is held to ransom by the anti social elements. The business enterprises representing the engine of growth have found majority of these graduates not so attractive to their purpose of running a factory or a commercial venture.

They can only find places in a government institution because the governments are always under political pressure to provide jobs even if there are no jobs.

This has to stop and education must be changed to suit the business environment and allow investments to attract into the country to employ our graduates. How can this happen unless we produce them meaningfully and deliberately. No matter what the universities try to do, they will not allow this to happen.

Their wily strategy is to keep the country poor, the graduates unemployed, so that they can appeal to a small group of people to take them to parliament in the belief that a utopia will arise from such politics.

(The writer is the Past President of the National Chamber of Commerce and Vice Chancellor, Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka)
http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/07/18/fea01.asp

One Religion or Two?

One Religion or Two?

The Case of Anne Holmes Redding

By Idris Tawfiq

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There is no doubt that interfaith dialogue, whereby the people of different religions get to know each other more through open and frank discussion, as well as friendly interchange, is one of the most pressing needs in the world today.

In a world that is becoming increasingly more secular, it is important that people of faith should talk to one another and uphold common values in a world that often has no place for God. Having two religions at the same time, though, seems to be stretching interfaith dialogue a bit too far.



And yet, that is what one lady in the United States claims to possess: two religions. Reverend Ann Holmes Redding, a minister of the Episcopal Church, claims to have declared Shahadah and become Muslim, while at the same time remaining Christian and fulfilling all of her duties as a minister.

When I first heard the story, my immediate action was to go and look through some of my own papers.
She is said to put on a veil, face the direction of Makkah, and pray five times a day. Yet for the rest of the day, she performs the function of a minister of the Episcopal Church, which might any day include baptisms, weddings, and funerals. On a Sunday, she leads the congregation in its religious service and preaches from the pulpit.



Hearsay is very dangerous, so I must state right from the start that I am going only on reports (well-sourced reports) about the matter. The purpose here is not really to address one particular person's journey of faith, but to see what this story has to teach us. If these few words can be of any help or interest to Reverend Redding, that is an added bonus.



The question is, "Can you be Christian and Muslim at the same time?" I believe the answer to be a very resounding "No," but it needs a bit of unpacking so we can understand exactly what is going on.



When I first heard the story, my immediate action was to go and look through some of my own papers. Some of you may know that I declared Shahadah and embraced Islam nearly seven years ago in Regent's Park Mosque in London. Before being Muslim, I was a Roman Catholic priest. Not too long after embracing Islam, I came to live in Egypt.



In becoming Muslim, we renounce all other religions.
If I had stayed in London, the authorities at London Central Mosque (Regent's Park) would have eventually issued me with a certificate of embracing the Islamic Faith, once they had seen that my decision to become Muslim was a lasting one. Such a certificate is an important proof, for example, if you intend to visit Saudi Arabia and perform Hajj or `Umrah.



Since I lived in Egypt at the time, I obtained the certificate from Al-Azhar, the most famous seat of Islamic scholarship and the oldest university in the world.



So I went straight back to the certificate. I remember very clearly the words I had declared at Al-Azhar. The certificate, signed by the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar himself, contained the words I had uttered.

It says quite clearly that I reiterated [my] acknowledgement of the Islamic Faith, saying [first in Arabic and then in English]: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.



The next paragraph is most interesting, because it contains the other words that I said: I also acknowledge that Moses, Jesus and all other Prophets are servants and Messengers of Allah. I renounce all religions other than Islam. Furthermore, I hereby and henceforth adhere to Islam as my Faith and Shari`ah.



So there we have it, quite clearly. I remembered saying the words, and I know that the words make sense. In becoming Muslim, we renounce all other religions.



It may be possible in her church to have a variety of beliefs.
The problem doesn't lie in Islam accepting what had gone before. Because Muslims accept all former Prophets, as Prophets of Islam, they could not call themselves Christian or Jewish, but they would have no problem in saying that they are followers of Jesus or followers of Moses, since both of these men were Prophets of Islam.



Muslims believe that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the final Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets. The problem, in this situation, lies in what Christianity teaches. Christians believe that the final revelation of Almighty to God to humankind is in the person of Jesus Christ.

According to this belief, there are no more prophets after Jesus. A Christian would be unable to accept Muhammad as a prophet of God, because his Message denies some of what Christians have come to believe.



Anyone who claims to be Christian, then, can't believe in Muhammad as a prophet. One of the central tenets of Christianity, regardless of the belief in Jesus as divine, is that Jesus died on the cross. The Message revealed to Muhammad in the Qur'an is quite clear: Jesus did not die on the Cross (An-Nisaa' 4:157). So, anyone who claims to be Christian cannot be Muslim. And as we have said, anyone who claims to be Muslim cannot be the follower of another religion.



The situation of Reverend Redding is only fully known to Allah alone, who knows our intentions and the secrets of our hearts, but as the facts appear, she is neither Christian nor Muslim. Anyone in such a dilemma, having been a Christian minister and wanting to embrace Islam, has a very difficult choice to make.

As Muslims, we should never underestimate what it takes to renounce one's former religion and embrace Islam. Just as we spend a great deal of time and money on calling others to Islam, we need also to spend similar, if not more, on helping those who have embraced Islam to grow in their new faith.



As an outsider to this particular case, it seems to me that her dilemma much reflects the doctrinal dilemmas being experienced by the Episcopal Church in the US, as much as her personal conversion story. It may be possible in her church to have a variety of beliefs, catering for a wide range of different points of view.



In Islam, we simply submit to the will of Almighty Allah and follow the example of His Prophet — Muhammad. The opinion of this one or that one is not important when compared to the facts revealed to humankind in the Qur'an. As Muslims, we believe that the Qur'an is the revealed word of Allah. It is the exact word of Allah and has not been altered in any way.



This episode can help us all to present Islam in a very clear way to those who would embrace it. As brothers and sisters to one another, we cannot let down new Muslims by not presenting everything about Islam to them in a simple way. Our prayers are with all of those who have made great sacrifices to submit their will and their heart to Allah. There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger.Idris Tawfiq is a British writer who became Muslim a few years ago. Previously, he was head of religious education in different schools in the United Kingdom. Before embracing Islam, he was a Roman Catholic priest. He now lives in Egypt. For more information about him, visit www.idristawfiq.com.

The Mass Expulsion of the Northern Muslims: A Tragedy Forgotten, a Community Derelict

Wednesday,09 May 2007( Posted : 11:05:07GMT)

By Ayesha Zuhair

http://www.muslimguardian.com/portal/page?_pageid=35,54475&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

"What future?" queried Abu Bakr Niyas, the weary-looking 'camp leader' of the Saltern Camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Puttalam, responding to my question on their expectations for the future. "Our main concern is to be able to give our families at least two square meals a day. Personally, I don't think about the future; only about the present. I gave up thinking about the future a very long time ago," was the laconic answer.

Niyas hails from New Moor Street in Jaffna where he worked as a transport manager. His job afforded him a respectable standard of living despite its demanding work schedules and life in the peninsula had been largely peaceful. That was, of course, until the latent hostilities started to give way into ethnic warfare in the late 1980s.

While the LTTE had given a 48-hour ultimatum for the Muslims in the other Northern townships, those in Jaffna - like Niyas - were given just two hours to leave or face extermination. They were permitted to take only Rs. 300 for transportation purposes and along with a few items of clothing.

With hardly any time on their hands, most of the Muslims from Jaffna left as they were, taking no belongings with them. Others tried to conceal their valuables but under the watchful eye of the LTTE, just a handful of them were able to 'smuggle' their valuables out of the North. Niyas was among the vast majority who were not fortunate enough to be able to escape the LTTE's careful scrutiny and with just Rs. 300 in his hands, he left behind his much-loved city and joined over 100,000 Northern Muslims in their southward quest. As displaced persons, they were temporarily absorbed into towns such as Anuradhapura and Kurunegela, but the majority wound up in Puttalam.

What were then considered to be temporary settlements have now become permanent abodes for these unfortunate victims of the LTTE's horrific programme of ethnic cleansing.

Almost 17 years later after the mass eviction, Puttalam still houses approximately 63,000 displaced persons across 141 welfare centres, from the five districts of the Northern Province which were controlled by the LTTE in 1990. Over the years, Puttalam has also played host to some Tamil and Sinhala IDPs who have been driven away from their homes in Batticaloa and Trincomalee due to open warfare.

As some studies have pointed out, hosting a large IDP population has placed a great deal of pressure on the local services as they were not proportionally developed to meet the needs of the populace. Moreover, it has had a negative impact on the relations between the IDPs and the host community who originally welcomed the displaced people.

Puttalam can never be considered 'home' to the Northern Muslims as 34-year-old Faseela Mohamed, a mother of two, vouched. "I was born in Jaffna and that will always be my home. Even though the people of Puttalam have been helpful to us, I don't think they'll be happy to have us here forever," Faseela noted.

This fact was also affirmed by M. S. M. Suhar, Principal of Abdeen Muslim Maha Vidyalaya, a rudimentary school recently set up exclusively for displaced children. "It is like having a guest at home. You will welcome them for a short while, but you will not be happy to have them forever. After all, there has been huge constrain on resources ever since the mass influx of refugees," the principal reasoned.

Abdeen Muslim Maha Vidyalaya, which opened its doors on January 02 this year for children living in the Thambapani Camp, was set up under the Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services. It conducts classes from Grade One to Five and has a student population of 120. The teachers work at the school on a voluntary basis as there is no provision for them to obtain permanent teaching appointments, due to the fact that the school does not come under the purview of the Ministry of Education.

The volunteer teachers receive a monthly remuneration of Rs. 2000 which is inadequate to meet the cost of transportation alone. On average, these teachers commute a distance of 15 km to reach the interior locality of the school and the trishaws which bring them there charge competitive high rates.

Abdeen Maha Vidyalaya is among five new schools that were established recently, the others being Hasban Vidyalaya, Rizvan Vidyalaya, Ayub Vidyala and Ansari Vidyalaya. These schools have very basic facilities and there is no proper authority to monitor the standard of education and extend the infrastructural, technical, financial and methodological support that they require.

Mr. Suhar, the Principal of Abdeen Maha Vidyalaya, himself a victim of the LTTE's ethnic cleansing campaign, also pointed out that the Puttalam district was at a severe disadvantage where university entrance is concerned. This is due to the fact that despite the demographic changes that have taken place, the district quota allotment of the University Grants Commission has remained unchanged.

As a result, the Muslims in particular are seriously disadvantaged because of a higher number of students competing for the same amount of university slots, Mr. Suhar emphasised. "Earlier, a large number of Muslim students entered the universities but now that trend has completely changed thanks to the outdated UGC circular that continues to be used. We have made a number of representations in this regard, but all our efforts have proven futile," a clearly agitated Suhar explained.

For the IDPs in Puttalam, every day is an enormous struggle to make ends meet. Unemployment is a massive problem for the majority of them who rely largely on seasonal demand for labour such as work in the salterns and various other odd jobs. They live in Cadjan huts, very often with two to three families crouched into one little hut.

Indeed the conditions in which these IDPs live are nothing short of appalling. As A. C. Miskath, a B.A. undergraduate at the Peradeniya University said, "Very little has changed for the vast number of refugees since they came here in 1990." Miskath came to Puttalam from Mannar as a young boy. He is among the handful who have been able to lift themselves out of dire straits - thanks in no small proportion to the education he has received.

"Having lived under the same conditions most of my growing years, I know the psychological trials that one has to endure in these camps. There is so much of hardship and little relief in sight. Sadly, the next generation has grown up in these camps," Miskath explained.

Proper sanitation facilities are another critical shortcoming. In the Saltern camp, 20 public toilets were set up by an NGO but when land was claimed by an individual IDP family, common ownership was lost. The lack of a sanitation system is particularly problematic for women for whom privacy is a major concern.

Moreover, although dry rations are being provided by the government, there are a number of problems being encountered in relation to these items. Safeera Latheef (35) at the Thambapani Camp explained that they are frequently given poor quality food at exorbitant rates. A family is entitled to rations such as milk food, rice grain, dhal, sugar and soap worth Rs. 1,260 a month but the cooperatives jack up rates unfairly to profit from their plight, Safeera alleged.

Safeera's husband left to Saudi Arabia in search of greener pastures, leaving her with their three children. She would like to see her children well-educated, but she does not dare to dream for fear of being disappointed - all over again.

At the moment, my main concern is to provide good meals for them but someday I wish they would be well-educated and employed. But I don't want to have too many expectations because expectations have only brought me disappointment, the reflective Safeera said. She added, "I would love to go back to Mannar but I know that it will never happen. It is like hoping for the impossible."

Naseeha, a 22-year-old IDP who also lives in the Thambapani Camp came to Puttalam from Kekirawa in 1993. She can't recall the eviction, but according to her, that doesn't lessen the anger she harbours in any way. "It feels like we have been robbed. If not for the LTTE, we wouldn't be facing the suffering the way we are today," she insisted. Her 20-year-old sister Nisreena chipped in, "If it is safe, we'd definitely like to go back to Mannar."

After the Ceasefire Agreement was signed in February 2002, a number of these displaced families returned to their homes in the North but with the intensification of the armed conflict, they have all returned to Puttalam.

According to Y. L. M. Navavi, Commissioner of the Secretariat for Northern Displaced Muslims, around 180 families from Jaffna and 115 families from Mannar have returned. He stated that since the situation in the North does not permit their return, the only option is to settle the IDPs permanently in Puttalam and look into their welfare.

While acknowledging that there are a number of shortcomings, Mr. Navavi asserted that the Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services is committed to uplifting IDP living standards. The initiatives taken include the provision of electricity, water and dry rations as well as education for displaced children. He denied any knowledge of the cooperatives charging inflated rates from the IDPs.

Mr. Navavi also said that Cabinet approval has been given for a housing project funded by the World Bank. Even though the approval was granted on July 26 2005, work is yet to get underway.

The overall slow pace of development is indeed cause for concern. It is clear that housing, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, compensation for property lost and proper land titles are areas which require immediate attention. Such measures are urgently needed if the long lost flame of hope is to be reignited in the Puttalam IDPs, who feel that they have been twice betrayed.

Courtasy : Dailymirror

Comments - Mine

I believe the LTTE has apologized for this atrocity now. But it is too little too late after the deed has been done. Words of apology is not acceptable & will not solve this problem. The only words of apology that will be acceptable is for the LTTE to allow these Muslims to return back to their original dwelling. But I don't think that this will happen until a solution is found to the conflict.

After LTTE carrying out this dastardly act of ethnic cleansing what right have the Tamil community to CRY about whatever discriminations that they are facing from the majority Sinhalese community. They have LOST that right. It has to be mentioned that the Muslims of Sri Lanka have nothing to do with whatever discriminations that the Tamils were facing from the Sinhalese community from independence.

Until a solution is found the Muslims from the rest of the country can do their bit to make the life of these unfortunate Muslims comfortable as possible in their new dwelling. And we need to keep highlighting this tragedy lest the Muslims in the country forget about it and also to ensure that this particular issue is taken into consideration by the govt in finding any solution for the ethnic conflict.