The pitfalls of playing politics with education
Unequivocal is the fact that in Sri Lanka, year by year, youth unemployment is growing. The doorway to youth employment, both locally and overseas, appears to be semi-closed than ajar. The highest rate of unemployment is in the age groups of GCE A/Level and above. The causative factor of un-employability is the ‘paucity of skills to match employability’.
In my view, the principal hindering factor in imparting knowledge for acquisition of technical skills is lined with the lack of English language education in the school education system in Lanka. This, no doubt was a spin-off of political foolhardiness, for which not only the egocentric politicos but also the foolhardy party-supporters must accept the blame.
Readers be watchful: politicians, absolutely shortsighted, nonetheless shrewd at ‘vote sucking’ are here to stay! They and their buddies are up to it again! One vociferously announced giving tabs to schoolchildren and teachers perhaps forgetful that he uttered the same promise during the 2015 pre-election era but didn’t do it. True, it is an unequivocal fact that computer literacy is a prerequisite nowadays to gain technical skills efficiently, effectively and profitably. Deplorably, the political guru is ignorant that a tab (or an iPad) is certainly not the aid required for school kids to acquire fundamental computer literacy! He should, even at this late age, learn to obtain guidance from subject specialists prior to utterances and decision-making.
In my experience, the ideal type of computer to learn computing is the desktop computer (cheaper) or the laptop (costly). It is a fact that, ‘touch typing’ is the proper way to input text and numeric data into a computer. Touch typing minimises hours wasted at the computer desk and saves hours towards other productive work. The tab with the one finger operated latent touchscreen keyboard is not the ideal aid. In fact, a computer room in a school with few desktop computers, set up at a lower cost, would promote the schoolchildren to use computers for appropriate and better learning, including skill learning later on.
Therefore, voters must know that, at a time, when Sri Lankans are underrated for technical competency - hence deprived of jobs in the local and foreign job market, the decision makers should be knowledgeable, well informed and wise to regain lost value systems in the country. The voter has a bounden responsibility to assess the parliamentarians in the queue and not just the party symbol or colour of the flag.