Moving from #GotaGoHome to #SystemChange
#GotaGoHome captures a diverse range of demands. One of these is the demand for ‘kramaya peralamu’ or systemic change.
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Kuppi Talk
The university and the present moment of crisis
Sri Lankans continue to protest against a corrupt government and, especially, demand the discontinuation in office of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his extended family. As the call for the government to step down intensifies and becomes ever more specific, I start to wonder whether a government, however mighty, can bring about this sort of socio-economic free fall on its own.
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Education worthy of this moment of crisis
The education system, to which we belonged, then and today, is not transformative, not in the way we envisioned. As far as education was concerned, the solution to the lockdown was to merely move from on-site to online, with little acknowledgement of the students
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#GoHomeGota, ‘the struggle’ and the rhetoric
I use the hashtag #GoHomeGota to mark this watershed moment in Sri Lanka’s postcolonial history. It is in honour of the people who have stormed the streets to demolish the Bastille of a dynastic and nepotistic political regime that has left Sri Lanka in an economic meltdown. People of every class and creed have united against a “common enemy”; the Rajapaksas.
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Where Arts Faculties should be headed – a rejoinder
Over a month ago, I wrote in this column about the way the current Quality Assurance processes, including the Qualifications framework, has little space for Humanities and Social Sciences
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A crisis ‘in’ Social Sciences education or a crisis ‘of’ Social Sciences education?
A month ago, the University I am attached to, circulated an email to the faculty academics asking them to submit details of their research and publications for 2017-2021. The email mentioned that these details were required by the National Audit Office of Sri Lanka.
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Can outcome-based education get to the heart of the matter?
This article is a continuation of views and opinions expressed in this forum on the quality assurance process in Sri Lankan university education. In this article, reflecting on my academic training and personal experiences, I mainly question the interpretation of “outcome-based education” (OBE) and the emphasis given to it in the Manuals prepared for Institutional Review and Undergraduate Study Programme Review of Sri Lankan Universities and Higher Education Institutions published by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2015 as part of a World Bank-funded project, currently under implementation.
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Undervaluing Social Science and Humanities teaching in the Sri Lankan University System
The Sri Lankan University system celebrated 100 years of university education in the humanities and social sciences in 2021. As part of commemorating the centenary, the UGC with the Standing Committee Head as its convenor organised a conference on the present status of Humanities and Social Science Education.
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Decolonising education and critical thinking
Just as educational institutions served to colonise subjects in colonial settings, the decolonising project also started through education. In the discipline of history, for instance, we constantly attempt to decolonise knowledge that has been created about the past
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Caste and Education in the North
Recently, a Panchamar caste community—a collection of five caste-based communities subjected to systemic oppression and exploitation historically and forming a significant share of Jaffna’s population today—faced severe casteist violence at Vaddukoddai in Jaffna. One person from the community lost a finger as a result;
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