ප්‍රශ්නයක් වූ අසමත් පුතාලා

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                                                 සිංහල ලිත් ඉලක්කම්

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ප්‍රශ්නයක් වූ අසමත් පුතාලා 

බොහෝ දෙමව්පියන්ටඅවශ්‍ය තම දරුවන් සමාජයේ තමන්ට වඩා ඉහළින් සිටිනු දකින්න. මෙහි ඉහළින් කියන්නෙ මේ සමාජයේ සම්මත ආකාරයෙන්. ලිපිකරුවකුට අවශ්‍ය වන්න පුළුවන් තම පුතා හරි දුව හරි අමාත්‍යාංශ ලේකම් කෙනකු කරන්න. සමහර දෙමව්පියන්ට අවශ්‍ය තම දරුවා තම ක්‍ෂෙත්‍රයෙහි ම ඉහළින් සිටිනු දකින්න. තවත් සමහරුන්ට අවශ්‍ය දරුවන් වෙනත් ක්‍ෂෙත්‍රයක ඉහළින් තබන්න. ඒ සඳහා අධ්‍යාපනයක් ලබා දෙන්න. මා එයට දොස් කියන්නේ නැහැ. අධ්‍යාපනය එක එක විධියට ලබා ගන්න පුළුවන්. දේශපාලනයෙ දී අවශ්‍ය වෙන ම අධ්‍යාපනයක්. දේශපාලන විද්‍යාව ඉගෙන ගෙන දේශපාලනය කරන්න බැහැ.

මුතුකුඩ හා ඊනියා තුන්වැනි ලෝකයේ මළකඳන්

මුතුකුඩ හා ඊනියා තුන්වැනි ලෝකයේ මළකඳන්

බොහෝ දේ ලිවීමට තිබුණත් මේ ලිපිය ප්‍රමාද කිරීමට බැහැ. මුතුකුඩ නාට්‍ය ගැන අදහස් කිහිපයක් යනුවෙන් පළ වූ ලිපියට ප්‍රතිචාර දැක් වූ පඬි පෝතකයකු මේ මුතුකුඩ ගැන දැයි අසා තිබුණා. පඬියන් හා පඬි පෝතකයන් මගේ ශෛලිය තවමත් දන්නේ නැත්නම් එයින් කියැවෙන්නේ ඔවුන්ගේ අල්තාර ශෛලියයි. මගේ ශෛලිය හාමුදුරුවරුන්ගේ බණ ශෛලිය මිස අල්තාර ශෛලිය නො වෙයි. හාමුදුරුවන් ධර්ම දේශනා කරන්නේ ඇතැම් විට යම් සූත්‍ර පාඨයක් ගෙන හැර දක්වමින්. එහෙත් උන්වහන්සේලා ඒ වටා තවත් බොහෝ කතා දේශනා කරනවා. කාට හරි හිතෙන්න පුළුවන් ඒ කතා සූත්‍ර පාඨයට අදාළ නැහැ කියලා. එහි අදාළත්වය තේරුම් ගන්නට අල්තාර ශෛලියෙන් බැහැර වෙන්න ඕන. මේ ශෛලි අතර වෙනසත් රේඛීය හා චක්‍රීය චින්තන අතර තවත් වෙනසක්.

ලංකා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයට හැත්තෑපහයි

ලංකා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයට හැත්තෑපහයි

ලංකා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය පිහිටුවා මේ වසරට අවුරුදු හැත්තෑපහක් වෙනවා. 1921 දී ලන්ඩන් විශ්වවිිද්‍යාලයට අනුබද්ධිිත විද්‍යාලයක් කොළඹ කුමාරතුංග මුනිදාස (එකල තර්ස්ටන්) පාරේ පිහිටුවනු ලැබුවා. ඒ සඳහා යොදා ගත්තේ රාජකීය විද්‍යාලයේ ගොඩනැගිලි. අදත් පවතින සැම්ප්සන් බංගලාව ඒ ඉතිහාසය කියනවා. සැම්ප්සන් එවකට රාජකීය විදුහලේ වැඩ බලන විදුහල්පති. ඔහුගේ නිල නිවස සැම්ප්සන් බංගලාව ලෙස හඳුන්වනු ලැබුවා. ලන්ඩන් විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයට අනුබද්ධිත විශ්වවිද්‍යලයීය ආයතනය පිහිටුවීමත් සමග රාජකීය විද්‍යාලය අල්ලපු වැටට ගෙන ගියා. විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයීය ආයතනය ලංකා විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය බවට පත් කෙරුණේ 1942 දී.

වකුගඩු රෝගයට බෙහෙත් නැති ශාස්ත්‍රීය ම නොවන ශාස්ත්‍රීය අධ්‍යාපනය

වකුගඩු රෝගයට බෙහෙත් නැති ශාස්ත්‍රීය ම නොවන ශාස්ත්‍රීය අධ්‍යාපනය

සිංහලයන් ශිල්පවලට අති දක්‍ෂයි. අපට ඉතිහාසයෙන් උරුම වී ඇත්තේත් ශාස්ත්‍රවලට වඩා ශිල්ප. අපේ සාහිත්‍යයක් අපට නැතුවා නො වෙයි. එහෙත් ඒ සාහිත්‍යය බොහෝ විට සිංහල බෞද්ධාගමිකයි. එහි දෙවියන් ද සිටිනවා. එහි කිසිම වරදක් නැහැ. අපට ඉතා ඉහළ වෙදකමක්, ගොවිකමක්, ඉදිකිරීමක් තිබී ඇති බව පැහැදිලියි. වෙදකම ගැන ලියැවුණු පොතපත නම් තරමක් තිබෙනවා. ඒත් ඒ පිළිබඳ තොරතුරු ලබා ගැනීම තරමක් අසීරුයි. පොත්පත් ඇත්තේ විසිරිලා. අපට කොහොමත් මධ්‍යගත දැනුමක් තිබී ඇත්තේ බුදුදහම සම්බන්ධයෙන් පමණයි. ඒ මහාවිහාරය  දහම පිළිබඳ අධිකාරී බලයක් ලබා ගැනීමෙන් පසුව. එයට කලින් අභයගිරියෙහි හා වෙනත් ආරාමවල බුදුදහම සම්බන්ධයෙනුත් විවිධ අර්ථකථන තිබී ඇති බව පැහැදිලියි.

FUTA trade union action – past and present –III

I read with interest the article by Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, a member of the Faculty of Arts Teachers’ Association of the University of Colombo on Education Policy and FUTA’s mandate published on 20th August 2012. I know that he is not referring to me but I must state that I have no objections to the agitation by FUTA for government policy changes regarding higher education or education in general or any other matter in general. My objections to the present demands by FUTA are on other grounds. FUTA is a stakeholder in any matter in general and especially of higher education and education. However, FUTA should realize that when it comes to government policy, increasing the salary of academics also being a government policy, there are other stakeholders as such and whether we like it or not there is only one decision maker. The government of the day, irrespective of whether it is controlled by the officials of the Ministry of Finance/Treasury and/or other such bodies, is the decision maker and nobody else local or foreign. It applies not only to education but to other areas including Tamil racism.

Once the people elect a government until it is defeated by democratic means/revolution the government decides on policy and not any other body, NGO, INGO, trade union, so called civil society or Maranadhara Samithi. They can be agitators, opinion makers and what not as long as they act within the purview of the constitution of the country. The other stakeholders have the right to oppose demands by trade unions and pressure groups whether they are so called educated or not. As indirect tax payers, citizens, electors with our names on the electoral lists are all stakeholders in any issue and it is not the prerogative of well financed bodies, influential people to be opinion makers. If a trade union thinks that as it sees in the public interest it should oppose demands by another trade union it should be free to do so, letting the government decide what it should do. Let the people decide once in five or six years whether the government in power had made the correct decisions. However, having said all that it has to be pointed out that the government cannot sign memoranda of understanding with FUTA on matters connected with education as it is not the only stakeholder in the field of education.

Though some teachers and teacher’s associations in the universities now agitate for what they think is a better deal for education it is unfortunate that they have no advise to be given to the government on the Z score problem which unfortunately is a creation of the academics themselves assisted by anti government school teacher unions, and on the mistakes in the question papers set for the A/L examinations. The latter problem is not something unique to this year though some media attempt to project a picture blaming the examination department as if the problem has arisen for the first time. If one goes through the files one would come across mistakes in question papers during the time Ranil Wickremesinghe was the minister of education, and if a Parliamentary Select Committee were to be appointed to look into the work of the examination department it should be given the mandate to cover the period to date commencing from 1977, the year J R Jayawardhane came to power.

It is also unfortunate that twenty years ago when I was dismissed from the University of Colombo neither FUTA nor the teachers’ associations at Colombo took any action against the decision by the Council of that University. It is ironic at that the time I was dismissed I was the President of FUTA, the President of the Science Teachers’ Association at Colombo and a member of the committee of the University Teachers’ Associations of the University of Colombo. Some of the teachers at Colombo who agitate now for a better deal for education did not allow me even to present my case to the two teachers’ associations mentioned above. They did not want to listen to me though the Minister and the UGC were listening to me on the demands for a salary increase for the teachers and other benefits. As I have already said I continued to be the President of FUTA though I lost my membership in the two teachers’ associations, thanks to the English Instructors’ Union that elected me as one of their representatives to FUTA. Perhaps these valiant members of the teachers’ associations who now fight for free education in the country thought then that I was a barrier to free education. Of course at that time there was no Faculty of Arts Teachers’ Association at the University of Colombo and the University Teachers’ Association covered all the Faculties of the University.

I must say that Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri, the current President of FUTA was an Assistant Lecturer at that time, and he and a few others wanted to take up my case but they were a powerless insignificant minority who were steam rolled by a combination of Socialists and Liberals who thought that they were dons among dons. I am sure that Prof. Uyangoda remembers this incident and if he has forgotten it he could consult very senior academics at that time who later became Vice Chancellors and Chancellors at various universities. As a result of the trade union struggle the lectures got a very substantial salary increase though I was denied of it due to my expulsion from the University of Colombo.

Even twenty years ago there was a discussion on boycotting of setting, moderating question papers and marking answer scripts at the G C E (A/L) Examination. However saner council prevailed and FUTA did not decide to go along with the proposal. A trade union can take a decision to withhold, withdraw the services labour rendered to the relevant institution but not to others or other institutions. It is true that the Department of Examinations usually appoints university lecturers and retired lecturers as controllers in chief, setters moderators etc. but it has to be emphasized that it is the Department of Examinations that appoints them and not the relevant university. The services rendered to the Department of Examinations do not come under the purview of the letters of appointment of the lecturers issued by the Universities and no university teachers’ association has the right to withdraw the services rendered by the lecturers to the Department of Examinations. The lecturers though appointed as examiners of the G C E (A/L) examination by virtue of being lecturers, they do not serve the Department of examinations as lecturers. It is a voluntary service offered by the lecturers in their personal capacity for which they are remunerated and any lecturer has the freedom to refrain from working as an examiner at the G C E (A/L) examination, whereas a lecturer cannot refuse to work as an examiner at an examination conducted by the university after he/she is appointed as an examiner by the senate of the relevant university.

Would FUTA decide to debar university lecturers being appointed as secretaries of ministries, chairpersons of statutory bodies etc., as a course of action in respect of trade union struggle? It is an infringement of the individual rights of university academics and it is advisable if FUTA restricts its trade union action to university affairs without getting involved in court cases over human rights of members and also of the right of the public to obtain the services of the university lecturers whenever a need arises, of course with the consent of the lecturers concerned. The public as a body obtain the services of the university lecturers through government departments and FUTA should not be a hindrance in respect of this right of the public. The irony is that while FUTA claims that it is fighting for the improvement of free education in the country it debars the university lecturers from working as examiners at the G C E (A/L) examination which is part of free education, but allows the academics to serve private institutions that prepare students for degrees awarded by foreign universities. I am not saying that the teachers’ associations should take action on the latter as well, which they cannot do for the reasons I have mentioned above. The teachers’ associations could say that they are private institutions and not public departments and that their struggle is with the government and not with these private institutions, but the contradiction is illuminating. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Examination based education

I refer to the following from the article by Mr. R. Chandrasoma published in “The Island” of 28th July 2012.

“For more than half a century now, we have selected our doctors, engineers, academics and top administrators on the basis of their ‘performance’ at public examinations – the highest scorers island-wide have been admitted to these privileged positions. Is there any evidence that these top ‘achievers’ identified by examination scores have excelled as professionals and academics? Have we produced any public intellectual of standing through this exam-based selective protocol? Do we have researchers of the first rank? Are our doctors and engineers a driving-force in the creative improvement of the society we share with them? No difficulty will be found in answering these questions.”

I myself have answered the questions in the negative. However, in the western countries it appears that during the last few centuries most of the top achievers have come through the examination based education, though some very creative people could have been lost in the process, and some others such as Einstein could not be considered as products of that education. Is it only the examination based education that is responsible for the absence of top researches in Sri Lanka?

Nalin De Silva

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH/ MATHEMATICS V

It should be clear from what has been said so far the importance or otherwise of learning anything from witchcraft to so called science (western science) is decided by the relevant society, and that it is relative to the particular culture. Relativism is not a crime as some who have been trained in the culture of western Christian modernity which in the final analysis depends on the existence of an all powerful omnipresent and omniscient god dictating absolute good absolute heaven and absolute hell seem to think. These people think that their beliefs are absolute and ask the relativists whether good and bad are also relative. Yes they are relative, and my good and bad are decided relative to Nibbana. I not only try to refrain from killing animals but extend compassion (maithree) to these animals. I am not sure of the derivation of the word animal but I have been told that creature is derived from create implicating that all creatures have been created. The other creatures are killed by the homo sapiens, though the latter have also been created. The other animals have been created for the homo sapiens and apparently there is nothing wrong in killing other animals in various western cultures.

One could ask whether it is all right for the Sinhala Buddhists to kill innocent Tamils, and the answer is no. However, that does not mean that the Sinhala Buddhists would meditate when the country is under attack, and Prince Gemunu has taught the Sinhala Buddhists how to fight and engage in wars with minimum damage to the innocent people. The fact that such questions are never asked from people in other cultures speak volumes for the good or bad of killing others in other cultures. For example Israelis are never asked whether it is good to kill Palestinians. One does not have to go to west Asia in search of “non questions” such as above, but in Sri Lanka itself nobody asked Prabhakaran and his terrorist outfit whether it is good to bomb innocent Sinhala people. Perhaps they went by Bhagavad Gita where killing “enemy” has been defended by Krishna himself, and Arjuna had no misgivings after listening to the god. Killing not only animals but humans can be defended in many cultures depending of course on the circumstances. It is western Christian modernity and not Sinhala Buddhism that tries to impose its views on the general public in the name of an absolute truth assuming that the truth relative to western Christian modernity is the so called absolute truth.

Importance of English and Mathematics in present Sri Lanka has been decided by the west that imposes a cultural colonialism even after so called political independence that was given to us (and of course to the rest of the empires). The political, economical and cultural components of western Christian colonialism are interdependent and we cannot be totally political independent as long as we are under cultural and economical colonialism. At present the west imposes its colonialism not through the governors and government agents, the armed forces etc., but through knowledge that has been created in the west during the last five hundred years or so. As I have mentioned in the previous installments neither the ministry of education nor the universities have any independence, except to engage in a little bit of tinkering in the structure of education. Even the present discussion on the importance of English/Mathematics is just a tinkering and whether the ministry of education waives the condition of a pass in Mathematics at the GCE (OL) for those who want to enter the universities to study performing arts or not will not change the edifice of education that has been imposed on us by the English. However, these discussions are good if they open the eyes of the “educated” people in the country, even if nothing substantial happens as a result of such dialogue.

The western education is gradually coming to a halt but it will take a few more decades before we experience it. The universities in the whole world have outlived their existence and with the Faculties of Management Studies and Commerce gaining importance the universities in the whole world are in the process of becoming technical colleges supplying labour to the entrepreneurs in general. When the secretary to the ministry of higher education, who himself is a graduate in commerce and management studies, said recently that the universities should take the responsibility of producing a graduate who can be employed he summarized the present worldwide collapse in western education. England and its colonies in the British Isles could boast that so many higher educational institutes have been upgraded to university level and that there are so many universities in the country. However, what has happened is only a “downgrading” of universities in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century sense, and the universities have now become polytechs or poly technical colleges. Even at Cambridge it appears that the concept of an integrated university education has been lost, and apparently one could get a degree from Cambridge after finishing number of course units/modules at other institutes and taking some top up courses in the third year at the institute that could claim to be one of the best universities in the nineteenth sense of the word. When I was a schoolboy there was a so called polytech in Wellawatte which did not attract the “brilliant students”. The “good students” wanted to enter the universities while those who could not do well at the GCE (OL) entered institutes such as polytechs. This practice has been changed and now there are “good” students who study in the so called commerce stream.

However, in Sri Lanka we have never had a university in the sense of Oxford or Cambridge or London though we try to boast of Oxbridge traditions whether in mode or content or spirit. I am not concerned with the college/university structure with college tutorials as in Oxford and Cambridge but with the content that is taught, when I say Oxbridge traditions. The university college that was set up in 1921 at the Thurstan Road premises was nothing but a glorified “tuition kade” that prepared students for the University of London external examinations. Our mode was not that of Oxbridge, Red Brick Universities or even London but in content we followed them. In spirit we were no better than the present day private institutes preparing students for the degrees of various universities abroad, with various colleges of the University of London still awarding degrees through some of these institutes. We still continue with some of the “traditions” of the old “tuition kade” at the universities such as teaching for special and general degrees and collecting a fee, though a miserable two hundred rupees or so, for invigilating at a three hour examination. In addition to the Thurstan Road “tuition kade” we had the so called professional colleges namely the Medical College, Law College and the Technical College that had been in existence from the latter part of the nineteenth century and they were not even “tuition kades” but institutes that produced western medical doctors, Roman Dutch lawyers and English engineers. In 1942 when the University of Ceylon was established the Medical College was upgraded to a Faculty in the University and a Faculty of Engineering was added while keeping the technical college as it was. We also had a Faculty of Law and a Law College and our downgrading of the western nineteenth century university had commenced in 1942 itself with the so called upgrading. The Faculty of Medicine attached to the University of Colombo was called the Medical College until very recently, and even today a Law Medical match is played between students of the “Medical College” and the Law College. The graduates of the Faculty of Law cannot practice in courts of law unless they sit for an examination conducted by the Law College, as the former dean of the Faculty of Law, Dr. G. L. Peiris knows very well.

After 1942, the “tuition kade” spirit prevailed in the Faculties of Arts and Science while the spirit of the professional colleges prevailed in the so called professional faculties. The “good students” even then aspired to enter the so called professional faculties while some other “good students” wanted to enter the Faculties of Arts and Science either to become CCS cadets or assistant lecturers in their chosen disciplines or central bank recruits. Some of them would have ended up as scholars but not as intellectuals. They were endowed with the ability to understand the fundamentals and to analyze the “facts” among other things but did not possess the ability to question the fundamentals and create new concepts and theories. It is difficult to expect a cultivation of the qualities mentioned last in a “tuition kade”, and on top of that there was the problem of creating knowledge in an alien chinthanaya however sophisticated (westernized) the person may be.

While we discuss the importance of learning Mathematics the world has lost the universities forever, and these so called seats of higher learning are now engaged in teaching skills to students. Mathematics is not such a skill, though in Sri Lanka English/Mathematics are still considered to be skills that have to be learnt. The universities are now looking at ways of imparting skills such as English, IT together with what are called soft skills. They are all “job oriented” and in a “job oriented” education not much importance cannot be attached to Mathematics, western or otherwise. The emphasis on so called soft skills which are nothing but skills in marketing oneself that can be called “moththe hapankam” in colloquial Sinhala. The young people very often refer to “moththe danawa” and there are many people having such “skills” among the so called top people (they are now called CEOs and other officers with big sounding titles) whether in the government sector or in the private sector. The importance of all these skills are dictated to us by the Americans who became leaders of western Christian modernity after the so called second world war and the introduction of soft skills signifies the collapse of the western modernity.

In Sri Lanka the importance of English/Mathematics is emphasized due to western Christian colonialism, and I often wonder why the big bosses in the private sector cannot be taught Sinhala rather than teaching English to all the students in Sri Lanka. It is less expensive to teach Sinhala to the CEOs and other big boys and girls, and switching over to Sinhala in the private sector is not such a big problem. English that oppresses the great majority of people in the country has still not been “decrowned” by the society simply because the western Christian modernity imposes its hegemony on us. It is the will of the western Christian modernity that prevails and not that of the so called Sinhala Buddhist hegemony. Sometimes we tend to believe that if two people with equal “talents” except for knowledge in English come for an interview then the person with some knowledge in English has the advantage. However, it is not so as there may be situations where knowing English and very often together with it some acquaintance with the relevant culture and logic could be a disadvantage. Sinhala Buddhists are familiar with situations where neither a given proposition nor its negation is true or both could be true where the English educated person familiar with Aristotelian logic and who has not been able to break away from the particular thinking would be at sea.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH/ MATHEMATICS IV

If somebody wants to learn English or Mathematics for its own sake then it could be said that is his/her business, but then once again one could ask as to what made him/her learn English. Surely those lived in Sri Lanka before the nineteenth century would not have had an interest in learning English for its own sake as not many people would have heard of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century or before that. Even in the twenty first century how many Sri Lankans showed any interest in the Galle Literary Festival, though it was an occasion to be discussed in the English language newspapers with all the boycotts and statements against Sri Lanka by so called intellectuals such as Chomsky who could be misled easily as any publicity seeker could be, and Arundathi Roy who is only a lapdog (or lapbitch) of the western Christian modernity. Chomsky and Roy are both publicity seekers and the general public in USA and India, not to mention in Sri Lanka are not interested in their statements. At least Chomsky had been a distinguished linguist in the western Judaic Christian culture before he became a so called public figure but what about Roy who was pushed up by the western establishment as a goddess of big things with the publication of her novel.

There is no record of Ven. Thotagamuwe Shri Rahula Thera knowing any English though he has had a knowledge of six languages. It is very unlikely that Barana Ganithaya had any knowledge of western Mathematics, how important that subject would have been in the west at that time. There is no record of Euclid being translated into Sinhala, or anybody learning it in Greek before the Dutch established the schooling system, though books in Mathematics in Sanskrit such as Lilavathi had been translated into Sinhala. It has to be made clear that Bharath Mathematics is different from western Mathematics and did not have the concept of a so called proof following Aristotelian logic. Even Ramanujan who is easily the best, if not the only Tamil and Asian Mathematician of modern times did not have the concept of a proof and he was mainly a man of the Suthra tradition of Bharath Mathematics. Had he been in Chennai without going to Cambridge on Hardy’s initiation he could have given the world many more suthras on infinite series.

If I was living in Sri Lanka or Sinhale during the period Elara was reigning in Anuradhapura I would not have spent my time learning Mathematics (I did not learn English even in the second half of the twentieth century) , but would have learnt most probably Angam Pora in order to defeat Elara’s army. Whether one likes it or not we study something because it interests us or useful or important or whatever but all these have been decided for us by the society, unless of course we create our own knowledge, but even then creation is done based on a paradigm or more broadly a chinthanaya, and it is impossible to escape from the influence of these social factors. When the Bosathananvahanse did pas maha belum (five great surveys) from Thavthisa what essentially he did was to select the land and the culture (chinthanaya) that would help him to attain Buddhathva. If the Bosathananvahanse was born in what are now known as England or Wales or Iceland or even Japan he would not have attained Buddhathva in spite of the fact that he had the strength of the Parami Dharma he had perfected.

English and western Mathematics did not become important but have been made important by the society, meaning very often by those who take decisions on behalf of the society. Who are the people who take decisions in this society regarding Education? The decisions are made again by those who have been exposed to some kind of western education, and it is very rarely a person can break off from western Christian modernity once he/she is exposed to it. It is not because western Christian modernity is superior intrinsically but because it has been made superior through political power and manipulation. If one were to go to a person exposed to western Christian modernity and the corresponding education one would naturally get the impression that the western education is superior and that the three r’s representing abstract thinking are very important.

The Sinhala tradition in particular and the Bharath tradition in general refer to the Bahushruthas or those who have heard many things, and not literate, in spite of the fact that the Sinhala people had an alphabet and would have read at least some of the inscriptions that are found from Nagadeepa to Devundara in the island. As I have mentioned the level of abstraction among the Sinhalas is not up to that of the Jews and it is reflected in creating new knowledge in western disciplines. I have nothing against those Ph. D’s and first classes a reader had mentioned as creators of knowledge, but I am afraid none of them were creators of knowledge as such and were nowhere near the Nobel Prize winners and other award winners in science or even literature. (I mention these awards, not because I have any admiration for them but since they are the yardsticks of western knowledge) Even if some of the novels and poems by some of the “giants” in Sinhala literature are translated into English it is very unlikely that they would be awarded the Nobel Prize as they have not grasped the essence of the western culture. Neither have they portrayed the Sinhala culture for the westerners. Most of them have only written western novels and western poems in Sinhala. Sinhala poetry is not meant to be read (kiyaveema) but meant to be “sung” (keema) and the modern day Sinhala poets are only trying to generalize personal experiences and thus trying to abstract them without realizing that they are not good at abstracting. Dr. Gunadasa Amerasekera who tried recently to write personal stories and experiences without abstracting them very much, but sometimes taking credit for what others have done, has been criticized by the “establishment” for not generalizing and abstracting.

The pundits are lamenting that people are not reading books these days and that not many novels are sold. They claim that when it comes to poetry it is worse. Who are these pundits who express these views? They are invariably people who have been exposed to western Christian modernity either in English or Sinhala (Tamil) and what they do not realize is that even those days these novels and poems were not bought by the ordinary people. These books were prescribed for examinations and those who wanted to enter the university had to read them. The older generation could be brainwashed by lecturers on the importance of the western novel and the free verse but the younger generation who mainly came from the villages without much exposure to the western “values” could not be brainwashed that easily. Though the novels by the “giants” are not sold people buy books by late Mr. Jayasena Jayakody, even though they are not prescribed for public examinations. All that I am trying to say is that most of the so called bilingual giants were only trying to emulate western novelists, short story writers or poets without much success within the standards set up by of the west. Neither they went in search of a Sinhala tradition and finally it fell on the shoulders of people such as late Jayasena Jayakody to at least pave the way for the future generation to look for such tradition. (To be continued)

2011.03.02

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH/ MATHEMATICS III

At the outset I must thank Mr. Eric J. de Silva and Mrs. Goolbai Gunasekera for presenting their views on two different aspects I had mentioned in the previous articles. They are both eminent educationists who have empathetic and sympathetic views with what I had to say on what they have found to be interested in the articles, though I do not know any one of them personally. It is strange that though I have lived for more than sixty five years I know only a handful of people outside the university circles and that most of the people in the university system do not agree with me on most of the things I have to say. I do not jump into any conclusions from these two observations not because I have a little knowledge of western Mathematics, but since my Sinhala Buddhist culture which I rediscovered about thirty years ago does not encourage me to do so.

I was brought up in a semi urban environment, and had my entire education in Sinhala, until I was fourteen years old, and as I have said in a previous article my knowledge of English was very poor. I resented English and I must say that I had an aversion to learning English. At the age of fourteen I had to learn Pure Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in English and the following year I was introduced to Applied Mathematics and Advanced Mathematics again in English. At the end of that year, to be precise in December 1960, fifty long years ago, I sat the GCE (Ordinary Level), offering the three Mathematics subjects, Physics and Chemistry in English, Buddhism in Sinhala, the remaining two subjects being Sinhala and English. Learning Mathematics in English was not much of a problem as in a sense Mathematics is a language by itself. The principles in Physics had to be grasped in the language of Mathematics as my English was poor to express them in that language. It was only years later that I came across a statement by none other than Einstein himself, the epitome of Judaic Christian Chinthanaya, who had said something to the effect that if one could not explain Physics without resorting to Mathematics, then one has not understood Physics. Western science or any other discipline has to be taught in a language that the student knows (in which he feels at home – some Sinhalas and Tamils may feel at home in English) and not in a subject in which he has a very superficial knowledge if at all and which is foreign to him. In my case English is still foreign to me.

With Chemistry it was worse as only a few principles could be expressed in Mathematics. I had to cram the principles and I was not good at cramming or remembering so called facts. I am not good at all remembering poems, gathas etc., and the only song I know completely is the National Anthem. To make matters worse very often I could not express the practical procedure to the satisfaction of the teacher. When the teacher was famous Mr. E. C. Gunasekera all hell broke lose, but I must mention that unlike some other teachers he never ridiculed me (once a teacher, when I pronounced the O in boy as in “godaya”, wanted to know whether I was attending ….. central school.), and in fact I thought that he had some admiration for me. He was my class teacher in the University Entrance class, the present GCE (AL) class, and when I wanted to apply to enter the Faculty of Science, instead of the Faculty of Engineering (those days in filling the application form to sit the University Preliminary Examination or the Entrance Examination as it was called, one had to mention the Faculty one wished to apply) he encouraged me to do so. (A cynic might say that in any event I would not have entered the Faculty of Engineering, but to the dismay of such people I won a University Entrance Exhibition in spite of having failed in Chemistry). He taught me to be clear and logical in thinking, remember that happened outside the Mathematics class, and taught indirectly, perhaps not realizing what he was doing, the demerits of linear Aristotelian logic.

Once he was not satisfied with the definition of an acid given by the fourteen year old brats and wanted us to explain definition. Not surprisingly nobody in the class was capable of explaining definition and then he wanted us to define explanation! At that time I did not understand the significance of these orders (they were not questions coming from that much respected and loved teacher) but more than twenty years later it propelled me towards what can be called cyclic chinthanaya. Before English was made the language of instruction I was not afraid when questions were asked by the teachers, except in the English class, and sometimes I did not hesitate to ask questions involving fundamentals from the teachers. However, this changed with the introduction of English, and I wanted to hide my face in the class as I did not want the teachers to question me. How often I have found my own students in the university doing the same if they are questioned in English. Invariably throwing the Faculty decisions through the windows of the lecture theatre I resort to Sinhala as I want my students to learn and to be creative if possible at least in other fields, rather than be crammers sticking to the Faculty decisions on instructing in English. It is unfortunate that the Vidyalankara and Vidyodaya Universities are not instructing the students in the respective Faculties of Science in Sinhala after the first semester of the first year, thus going against the 1959 Act that established those universities. In spite of teaching science in English we have not produced a single FRS, who has come up with a new concept or theory in any scientific field, (the Sri Lankan who became a FRS few years back does not belong to this category) not to be confused with FRCS and other medical fellows who can be found in abundance. No Nobel Prize has been won by a Sri Lankan in a scientific discipline in spite of so many of them having worked in the western countries for the best part of their lives. It has to be emphasized that I do not attach much value to these Fellowships, Prizes and Awards, but I mention them as they reflect the so called standards in western knowledge.

Einstein’s statement which I came across while being a postgraduate (or graduate in American parlance) student in Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Sussex, brought me down to earth both literally and literary. I had been working on Cosmology and applications of General Relativity in Astrophysics, and the formulator of Relativity and Cosmology himself was telling me that I do not understand what I was talking about, though not in the same spirit it is stated regarding Mathematics. I began to wonder what would have happened if Einstein had to study Physics in English and not in German. Einstein was not famous for his Mathematics and had to depend on his teacher Minkowski and others later in life for help in Mathematics. If he had had to learn Physics in English at the gymnasium, it is very likely that he would not have ended up even as a clerk in the patent office. The national revolutions in Europe that made those countries independent of Latin (and Greek) did not want to succumb to English. This is reflected in the attitudes of the European Union, and the westerners would have most probably lost Lagranges, Boltzmans, Foucaults (not the recent Philosopher), Descarteses, Plancks, Einsteins, Bohrs, Schrödingers, Heisenbergs, Hilberts, Gödels, Machs, Wittgensteins and even Marxs if English had been the language of instruction in the respective countries. I am now not a sympathizer of western Physics, western Mathematics, western Philosophy or Marxism, but the western world would have been much poorer, of course relative to their culture and western Christian modernity, had Europe lost even a few of them. Most people are most creative when they are young and roughly below the age of thirty five years, Planck being an exception to this “rule”, and I consider it as a crime to teach whether Arts or Science subjects in English up to undergraduate level. Once a student has grasped the fundamentals he could be instructed in English or even in Latin if it is necessary but instructing a child or a young adult in a foreign language that he or she has not properly grasped is likely to kill the creative abilities of the person concerned in the other fields as well. When those who had come from English speaking families could not become FRS, knowing not only the “correct” pronunciation but the nuances, idioms and other subtleties of the English language what could be expected from the others who did not have those capabilities? I am not suggesting for a moment that learning western science in Sinhala will make the students more creative in those disciplines but at least that will open their eyes to contradictions in the culture in which science is created and the culture of the Sinhalas, and make them creative in other fields such as Philosophy (non western). Only some of those who are deeply immersed in the Judaic Christian culture have the potential to create knowledge in western science. The others can obtain their Ph.D’s. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH/ MATHEMATICS II

When a subject or a module or a topic is not made compulsory people learn due to various reasons. However, in general they have to learn something that has already been created by somebody else and often what has been accepted by the society in which he lives. The acceptance could be due to long term experience that what is learnt is useful to the broader objectives that the society is trying to achieve or due to various other factors. However, there is another kind of “acceptance”, where the subject matter is imposed on the society by alien agencies. Very often these agencies are colonial powers. Of course, there are the creators of knowledge who create new knowledge and among them there are people who would propagate what they have created. They are also in a sense trying to impose their views but they are different from the colonial powers as the former would very often try to convince others without resorting to political means. When I mention creators of knowledge I do not think in general of those so called contributors to knowledge who are after postgraduate degrees. They are very often only solvers of some peripheral problems or glorified collectors of facts, reporters, designers of questioners sample collectors etc.

In Sri Lanka like in the other countries we have what the western education specialists call the formal and the informal sectors. The so called formal sector is controlled entirely by the west whether we have educators from the western countries or not. In the bad old days we had educators (teachers, principals, education officers, vice chancellors, lecturers etc.,) from the “mother country” (do not ask me whose mother is) itself but at present except in the case of few schools we have local educators but that does not mean that the bad old days are over. The educators in Sri Lanka still follow the English and now the Americans as well. I know how much I have suffered as a student and as a teacher as I had to follow what the English and the Americans have dictated to us. The university autonomy is nothing but humbug, and the faculty boards and the senates have no option but to imitate the western syllabi and curricula. The so called educated people are products of this system and today I find some resistance within the Faculty of Science of the former Vidyalankara University renamed University of Kelaniya by none other J R Jayawardhane through an Act of Parliament, to the Bhavana programme that I as Dean of the Faculty have introduced after hours, mind you after hours and not within the time table. There is resistance to experiments on what I would call Sinhala govikama and Sinhala vedakama which we have commenced at Vidyalankara. The protestors have been told by somebody that these practices are not scientific, and they think that the work I have initiated does not comply with the so called scientific method. As far as I am concerned there is no scientific method as such and these are only ideas that have been propagated throughout the world in order to maintain the hegemony of western knowledge that includes western science. Western science has been lifted to a status of so called objective knowledge that is supposed to approach objective reality, with the assistance of so called Philosophy of Science that has been created again in the west.

The importance of learning English/Mathematics has to be discussed in this background. Who decided that English and Mathematics are two important subjects? Who decided that they are useful subjects? I know that in my case my creativity in the field of knowledge was set back by at least ten years as a result of having to learn western science in English, and I still feel after fifty years that I would have been better off if I had my undergraduate education in Sinhala. Those who read this column perhaps know that I think in Sinhala and that English is still foreign to me. The usefulness of Mathematics for shopping is gradually diminishing as the society is being flooded with various types of calculating machines. I am prepared to admit that Arithmetic is part of Mathematics, unlike some people who think of Arithmetic merely as calculations, and that number is a very abstract concept difficult to grasp. Many students who are not good at abstract thinking give up Arithmetic because the subject is abstract and above their level of understanding. Most of us are familiar with seven chairs or seven tables or seven coconuts. However, how many of us are familiar with the number seven. The number seven is represented by the symbol 7 but the symbol 7 is not the number seven. It is only a symbol just as much the Roman VII is not number seven. The number seven is roughly the common property of the collections of seven objects such as seven chairs and seven nuts. While seven bananas may be a concrete concept for most the number seven is not so. Those who are familiar with “shapthasvara” may not be familiar with the abstract concept of number “hatha”. If numbers are so abstract what can be said of even elementary Algebra.

Some Mathematics may be useful in Engineering and those who want to become Engineers (those who have been directed to Engineering by the society) may study Mathematics up to a certain level. Similarly some Economists, not all of them surely, may find Mathematics useful but simply because of it we should not make Mathematics compulsory for all Economics students. The uses we have discussed so far may be called direct uses but some would argue that there are indirect uses as well. It may be claimed that Mathematics train the students to think clearly and logically. I am not quite sure of this as there are so many among those who have studied Mathematics who are not very clear and logical in their thinking. On the other hand there may be at least a good proportion of those who studied Mathematics, who have taken to the subject due to the fact that they already possessed an inherent ability to think clearly and logically and also in an abstract way.

Now the million rupee question is who decide on what may be called indirect uses? Direct usefulness of Mathematics in Physics or Engineering is obvious. However, it leaves the question as to the usefulness of those two disciplines in society. This again is decided by the society and these decisions are taken in a holistic way though we may not realize it. The concept of hegemony of Gramsci is holistic and the western Christian hegemony has made us to believe that western abstract Mathematics has indirect uses such as mentioned above. In any event it has to be mentioned that the attempt by Bertrand Russell and others to reduce Mathematics to logic has failed. In the twentieth century it was also proved by Gödel that Hilbert’s formalist programme was not to be realized. What Gödel proved in essence was that there are statements in Mathematical systems that are true in a Mathematical sense, which cannot be derived from the set of axioms of the system. Thus with the failure of Russell’s and Hilbert’s programmes western Mathematics has become a structure without a solid foundation. So much for the logical and analytical nature of western Mathematics. Incidentally Gödel’s theorems, which are known as incompleteness theorems belong to Number Theory which is sometimes called Arithmetic. The failure of western Mathematics is due to inadequacy of Aristotelian logic and linear thinking. However, the western society is obsessed with Aristotelian logic and when they want us to be logical they have no misgivings on the logic that we should follow. How useful is to be logical in the Aristotelian way in a Sinhala Buddhist society when that logic fails miserably in explaining how King Devanampiya Tissa could neither be his relative nor non relative (noneya in Sinhala). (To be continued).

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING ENGLISH/ MATHEMATICS - I

Learning English cannot be considered as learning of a mere language. It may be that no language can be learnt merely as a language as any language is associated with a culture. Even the so called dead languages when they were “alive” would have been associated with cultures and a person who learns those languages is introduced to at least some aspects of the relevant cultures. I admire the attempts made by some English scholars to use a Sri Lankan English, but I do not think that a totally Sri Lankan English can ever be constructed. I am not thinking of pronunciation or grammar only but the culture that English brings with it.

When one goes little deep into learning one begins to feel that learning any subject for that matter brings with it a certain culture. Those who learn western sciences and mathematics are aware of the culture that is brought with the learning of those subjects. While there is no pure culture as such one has to be conscious of cultural intruders. These intruders may be referred to as cultural Trojan horses if one were to use an idiom from western culture itself! The present debate among highly reputed scholars on not making a pass in Mathematics compulsory for higher studies in areas such as Performing Arts has not taken place in a cultural background but on whether Mathematics is necessary for living in the present day society. I do not think a knowledge of either Mathematics or English is necessary for a person to live in present Sri Lanka as so many people have proved so by living without either. I am not a western empiricist by any means but there are so many in the University system itself who have managed to survive without much knowledge of English / Mathematics, and I do not mean only the non academics. Of course, one would say it speaks for the drop in the standards but then the question arises as to who sets the standards.

In a way the children are the most oppressed in any society. Whether they go to school or not they have to learn what the elders teach them and there is nobody to protect their so called right not to learn something that they do not want or like or they are not good at. From the day a child is born up to the time he sits for the GCE (ordinary level) examination, if he survives in the system or up to the time he becomes a so called dropout he is compelled to learn what the others have decided as good for him. While a dropout has some freedom to learn what he wants from what is again presented to him unless he creates his own knowledge, those who are caught in the system have no choice but to learn what is offered in their so called chosen fields. (Though people speak high of the availability of choices when it comes to knowledge there is no way of choosing without knowing) It is very rarely a person caught in the system has the ability to create his own knowledge. I would not be surprised if a so called researcher were to tell me that dropouts are more creative than the so called educated people.

The Mathematics needed to live in the present society is confined to addition and subtraction and may be multiplication and division in very elementary situations. In most cases it is a result of people having to buy and sell things. However, these days even the educated people who shop in “super markets” do not need these abilities as the machine at the counter does all these things for them. It appears that “sophisticated” housewives who travel in chauffer driven cars and shop in “super markets” do not need any Mathematics to survive in the present day society. However, the poor performing artistes who travel in buses and shop in the Irida Pola (we are a middle income nation and now and some of them patronize the “super markets” as well!) need a very basic knowledge of the most elementary operations of Mathematics mentioned above. I know a little bit of Mathematics but only a tiny bit of that little bit is needed in my day to day to living.

Some are of the view that logical reasoning is introduced through Mathematics, but if needed this so called logic can be introduced through other subjects as well. After all it is elementary Aristotelian logic that is introduced through Mathematics and I suppose that almost all people know that sons are born after fathers and not before. Most of them also know that if Wimal and Bimal are of the same height, and if Bimal and Nimal are also of the same height then Wimal and Nimal are also of the same height. What we have discussed so far is western Mathematics, and that subject brings in a big dose of abstract thinking, but how many of us need that much of abstract thinking to survive in the present day society? It should not be forgotten that we are all accustomed to some abstract thinking. A word itself is an abstract concept and reading and writing depend on letters which are themselves abstract. The letters are symbols and all those who can read and write any language are familiar with some abstract concepts. However, these abstract concepts are needed only in societies that have alphabets and where reading has become a tool for communication. In any event there are so called illiterate people even in those societies who manage to obtain information without knowing the abstract alphabet.

The western society is more abstract in thinking and their “intellectuals” must have thought that the whole society should be geared for greater abstract thinking. The emphasis on the three r’s (reading, arithmetic and writing which are all abstract in a way) in education reflects this affinity for abstract thinking in the west. While the west produced abstract Mathematicians, Physicists, abstract novelists such as Dostoevsky and abstract artists such as Picasso, I can think of only cardboard Picassos, Einsteins and Dostoevskys in Sri Lanka. It is because we are not used to abstract thinking as the westerners, but the “upper crust” of “intellectuals” in Sri Lanka does not seem to realize this. Though they have failed to produce “greats” of the calibre mentioned above, they want the “lower rung” to come up to the standards of the “lower rung” of the western society. It is clear that the average level of abstract thinking (can somebody come up with an index to measure this?) in Sri Lanka, especially among the Sinhalas, is lower than that in the west. When we have not produced Picassos and Mozarts (Whether Mozart studied Mathematics or not is the question, he had abstract thinking in his blood so to say) why do we want our performing artistes to have a pass in western abstract Mathematics at the GCE (ordinary level)? When the average level of abstract thinking in Sri Lanka is lower than that in the west it is unfair to demand a pass in abstract western Mathematics to engage in higher studies in areas such as Performing arts. Let us face it. The Sinhalas on the average are good at Shilpa than at Shasthra. It appears that the Sinhala people have obtained their knowledge of Shasthra mainly through Bhavana. We are working on this problem at the University of Kelaniya and we will come out with more details in the near future. At Kelaniya we have organized Bhavana for students and staff after hours. I would suggest to the Minister of Education that we allocate time for Bhavana in the school time table. (To be continued)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva