Preschool education sans controls a sham
Lack of trained preschool teachers, poor environment within nurseries and the absence of a monitoring body for these institutions are hampering the education provided to preschool children, an Education Times investigation revealed.
Sri Lanka has 17,489 preschools with a cadre of over 25,000 teachers, with many of them lacking the requisite qualifications to teach.
The basic qualification for preschool teachers, set by the Sri Lanka Children’s Secretariat, is Advanced Levels and one-year Diploma certificate.
As a result of the poor standards, children fail to gain from following preschool education, before moving on to the primary classes.
A cross section of parents, educationist and officials conceded that, though there are several preschools which meet the required standards, there are several others which do not.
“I put my child into a preschool, believing that the environment would be healthy for him. Instead, he was overloaded with homework, and when he couldn’t finish them on time, he was disheartened, which later led to his refusal to go to school,” said Mallika Wijemanne ( 32) from Kohuwala.
She said that this was a result of teachers who are under-trained or lacked relevant knowledge such as child psychology, which is essential to those in that field.
A mother of two from Ratnapura said that parents were burdened with additional and unnecessary expenditure.
“We decided to enrol our child to a village Montessori, because we couldn’t afford going to town every day or to an expensive one. But, instead of paying school fees, we have to spend on other things, which is hard, as our income is small from my husbands garment business,” said Priyanthi Liyanage (33), a mother of two from Ratnapura.
She said that the preschool organizes events where children have to participate, and the parents have to pay for the costumes, which sometimes cost more than Rs 1,000.
Priyanthi said they simply do as the teachers bid, as they don’t want their child to feel left out.
S. Janani S. (23) a university student said that being a preschool teacher, now, is very much associated with failure to pass examinations. “It’s like an option when everything else fails. This shouldn’t be the case. As we are dealing with little children, it should be an area where the most trained and efficient persons get involved in,” she said.
Headmistress of a Montessori in Maharagama, Sharmini de Zylva said that preschools have been turned into businesses today. She said that, in addition to this, the school environment has become very competitive, where students have to compete in sports activities or peraheras.
She said this is not healthy and should be avoided, because children are still growing. She added that, it is important to bring up selfdisciplined self-learners in schools. “The environment of the school should be friendly, with freedom as a basis. We shouldn’t force virtues on the children.”
Even though most people call for trained teachers, the Education Times learns that there is a lack of such institutes, and among those that exist, are ones that fail to meet the required professional standards. Nonetheless, most of these institutes are expensive.
The government has recognised 44 Diploma institutes in the country that meets with their criteria.
As a preschool teacher trainer in the Gampaha area, Ms A. Ranasinghe said that there is an increasing demand in the area, while many wish to open their own preschools.
“Sri Lanka doesn’t have a proper system to monitor preschools. Also, there are no qualification levels for these teachers. Most think since preschool children are taught basic knowledge which anybody can do, and some, with a little bit of knowledge of preschool, wish to start one,” she said, adding that, she has come across places where teachers lack Ordinary Level or the one year Diploma in education.
Currently, there is no uniform system to register preschools, while in some areas, they are registered under the local or the provincial councils, while some others are registered as companies.
Although, a Children’s Secretariat under the Child Development & Women’s Affairs Ministry has been set up to draft policies for preschool education, it does not play a role in monitoring these institutions.
Children’s Secretariat, Assistant Director A.A.S. Athukorala admitted that Sri Lanka still lacks a body where all preschools could be registered with. “Even though these schools are registered under different government institutes, there are areas where they do not do so at all. We are trying to meet this lapse soon,” he said.
He said that, as the registration is only mandatory for the school and the headmistress, there are assistant teachers who are not trained or have the required qualification.
He said that a law should be brought in to regulate preschools in the country, as they need to be monitored, so that legal problems wouldn’t arise, as the Secretariat now doesn’t have the authority to check and close preschools.