Sri Lanka It's Happening

August 22, 2007

Sri Lanka is a failed state there is no doubt about that. So it's no suprise when things go wrong, badly wrong. Sometimes, the government tries remedial measure. It invariably turns out that the cure is worse than the disease.

Take school admissions for example. Everyone wants their children to goto a good school. Good schools are unfortunately are hard to find. Education is (supposedly) free. That means the government has to fund schools. Because state funds are used to fund politicians there is hardly anything left for the schools. So the the better one or the more established ones rely on their past pupils for a significant percentage of their fundings.

Schools without an influential and powerful past pupils association lack even the most basic facilities. So it's no suprise that everyone, tries to avoid these schools. As a result there is a deluge of applications for the good schools. They admit a certain percentage of children based on distance from the school and reserver another percentage for children of past pupils. The remainder is saved for those willing to grease a few palms.

For the distance based category a huge huge number of applicants send forged documents to show that they live close to the school while in fact they are not even in the same district. Even people who are otherwise honest are sometimes tempted to submit such documents in desparation.

Everyone, the government, the principals, PPAs, parents wanted the system changed. So they did try to change it. The government proposed a new scheme and the PPAs sued. The supreme court recommended an alternative method. The parliament promptly rejected that and issued a new guideline - which is essentially the old one in drags. This time the PPAs are stampeding to the courts.

School admissions are supposed to have been completed by August 15th. It will be another week at least before the smoke clears.

Posted by raditha at August 22, 2007 2:38 AM