Educating the Soul, the Spirit and then the Mind
Photo courtesy The Schools Project Background Over the years, I have spent much time with children and teachers in schools running leadership programs not only in Sri Lanka, but also in Canada,…
Education
JVP and the emerging crisis in Sri Lankan universities
[Editors note: See map of campus and university student related violence over 2010 alone here.] The university has been the most dependable and organic reservoir of full time political as well as…
Student Unrest in Universities
Unhappy university students are marching in the Island of Brinka, and I met my good old friend Sivapuranam Thevaram at a pub in the ancient university city of Cowford to discuss this…
A turn for the worse? Undergraduate protests and unrest in Sri Lanka
View Student unrest in Sri Lanka in a larger map. Recent months in Sri Lanka have seen a dramatic increase in the number of protests involving thousands of university students, many of…
Post War Sri Lanka: Thoughts of University Students
Last May Sri Lanka ended its long drawn war, fought for over three decades with the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE). This month Sri Lanka is commemorating the first year after…
Smarter investing in Science and Higher Education
I experienced three disturbing scenarios within the last 5 months. In no particular order they are as follows. I recently visited Sri Lanka after seven years. End of it I was overwhelmed…
Unemployment: Where did it go wrong and what should be done?
The unemployment rate in Sri Lanka is not exceptional when compared with other countries in the world. In fact, it might seem relatively low. On a list of countries ranked in order…
Should Vice-Chancellors pledge support to the President?
[ was informed that this open letter was penned on 20 January 2010, before the presidential election. Tellingly, efforts to publish it in the traditional print media before the presidential election, we…
Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma (1923-1994): A Passionate Champion of Public Science
On 20 December 2009, we mark the 15th death anniversary of Professor Cyril Ponnamperuma, one of the best known scientists produced by Sri Lanka during the Twentieth Century. He was both an internationally…
Ragging in our universities: A symptom or a disease?
Sri Lanka is one of the few countries that provides students the opportunity of a free secondary education. More than 200,000 students sit for the GCE Advanced Level examinations in Sri Lanka…
Lessons in Leadership
[Authors note: Edited text of a speech at the Jaffna Hindu College Old Boys Association (UK) Social Event: (31 October 2009)] Thank you very much for inviting me as Chief Guest. This…
The SLAS entrance exam: an age-limit of near madness
This note concerns the government gazette notification (available at http://www.dailynews.lk/2001/pix/GazetteS09-10-16.pdf) on the open competitive exam for recruitment to Grade III of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS). The SLAS is unarguably the…
Does cricket have a citizenship?
My family like many Sri Lankan families is cricket mad. I am the exception. When Sri Lanka played Pakistan a few days ago, my family lived and breathed cricket and it seemed…
English language is the need of the hour
At a recent discussion on; “Free schooling in Sri Lanka- A successful model then but a myth now?”, the subject of English language education in Sri Lanka came up for discussion once…
Interview with Prof. Tissa Vitharana on the 13th Amendment, Constitutional Reform, IT and English language
I began my conversation with Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology and Chair of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) by asking him about the state of play in Information…
