The Curse of Free Education

 

Have you ever stopped for a moment and stood back to look at how the majority of us push and shove our way to the top of the line while stepping on our so-called brethren (is there a ‘sistren’, too?) who stumble by the wayside with nary a second glance? Then you, too, are seeing a by-product of Free Education.

At the very outset, I would like to confess that I, too, am a product of the system and not a very pretty one at that. Also I want those who have salvaged their humanity and still remain essentially good despite going through the rounds in the current education system for at least 11 long years, this essay is not about you.

I have heard that most nouveau riche powers of those days had fiercely opposed the introduction of “Free Education” Bill (and that even the Father of Free Education had not intended it to be “free” to the extent it has become today?). And of course they were doing that to look after their not-so-meager interests recently acquired at such high spiritual and national cost.

But looking at where “Free Education” has landed us (even the socio-political changes brought on by the Open Economic Policies of President Jayawardena were possible because of the Free Education and Swabhasha Bills), doesn’t it ever make you wonder whether “free” is really “free”?

In my experience, first as a student and then as a teacher of a language and a particular variety of literature for nearly 30 years, I have seen the ugly side of so-called free education too often to be able to turn a blind eye to its existence. Free Education has created a climate of such fierce competition for the limited resources available in our society almost to the exclusion of everything fine in us as an ancient nation of people. This is especially so among the middleclass. The rat race begins at the womb and it strips many of us down to our pre-social beast-like id governed core – sorry, I am not a Rousseauist – by the time we cross the finish line. Longer you run more you lose. Many say that the system of education is the main culprit as if it were some parthenogenous entity and distance themselves from their social responsibilities as citizens. The system of education is like so-called democracy should be “by the people, of the people, for the people”. But thinking like that would necessitate some drastic changes and we as a nation are not very comfortable with change even when it would benefit us. So we maintain the status quo to our detriment.

To begin with, we have wilfully forgotten that the system of so-called education, free or otherwise, is essentially a system that was designed to create “civil servants” – now there’s irony if you are willing to see it - to serve the interests of the White Father. Despite the little tweaks initiated by a few commissions the system remains fundamentally a white-collar job market oriented process and in not-so-subtle ways creates a negative attitude towards the so-called blue collar jobs which eventually becomes the lot of the majority. This in turn inculcates a sense of inferiority in the would-be scholars who fall by the wayside during the race and massages the egos of those who manage to breast the ribbon. This is a vicious circle that tightens its hold on those at its grip at each turn of the wheel.

One might point to the presence of subjects like Citizenship Education, Religion and Literature as mitigating factors in the defence of the system. But that just goes on to show one’s ignorance of the fact that they too had long since fallen victims of the siren call of 9As, 3As and a First Classes of the current system and had become just some subjects to get through.

Ultimately, the vast majority of the end-products of the Free Education System at the end of their 17-year-or-so-long slog are unbearable snobs who are so full of their sense of having ARRIVED. Once at the top, in the best Kurtzian style they look around the Heart of Darkness (that is what you and I call “Sri Lanka”) and as soon as they spot gold get down to digging it out by the shovelful, mostly at the expense of their former class. Their egos made fragile by sudden inflation are ever sensitive to both real and imagined slights and bristle at the slightest provocation. Their motto seems to be “offense is the best defence”. They wear their lack of curtsy and sensitivity as crests. My friend, if something that we have created takes everything good in us away from us and leaves us monsters capable of committing acts of immense cruelty to fellow human beings and other fellow creatures on earth, what is so good about that system just because it is free? The gallows, death and many of the diseases that plague humanity are free, too!

I do not propose that we should throw the baby with the bathwater! But at a time everyone is fighting for the preservation of the right of the next generation to Free Education, it would be prudent to ensure not only the quantitative but also the qualitative aspects of the outputs of the system of Free Education.