topic: Education

දරුවන් බුද්ධිමත් කිරීමේදී නිවසේ තිබිය යුතු පරිසරය

Ivan argues that three decades of violence have damaged the country’s social psyche and that parents must shield children from the resulting culture, including what they see on television. Explaining how fast a child’s brain grows between four months and two years, he urges parents to care for mental as well as physical nourishment. He tells the story of John Stuart Mill, educated entirely at home by his father, learning Greek at three and logic at twelve, and while calling the experiment too harsh, draws from it the lesson that every home, rich or poor, should keep a collection of good books for children.

දරුවන් යහපත් හා සාර්ථක කිරීම

Prompted by the response to his column on retirement, Ivan writes about raising children. Gandhi, his hero, was in his view a failed father, and he describes how he kept his own weekends for his family. He argues that mothers should stay with young children through the long human childhood, that parental quarrels harm them, and that reading and chess build intelligence and self-control, drawing on how chess helped his son. He warns parents against forcing children into careers they do not want, and tells of his younger daughter’s school survey of social attitudes.

අධ්‍යාපන පරිපාලනය මස්ත බාල්දු කිරීම

Ivan criticises the absorption of 810 people without the required qualifications into the Sri Lanka Education Administrative Service at a time when 20,000 candidates sat an examination for 410 posts. He argues that such political favours degrade the service that runs the school system, and links the decision to wider failures in primary-school policy and the Z-score dispute over university admissions.

විශාඛාව හා නිදහස් අධ්‍යාපනය

Ivan reproduces the list of charges — Rs 8,320 for two years, including a security fund, electricity and prize-giving — that Visakha Vidyalaya’s principal asked A/L students to pay at once, and asks whether this applies only to elite schools or to all. Even then, pupils will spend thousands a month on tuition. He describes a neighbour in Galle, a former military policeman now driving a three-wheeler, who spends almost all his earnings on tuition for his two daughters, who are home only at night. If children cannot pass exams without paid tuition, he concludes, the free school system is failing in its basic duty.

විශ්වවිද්‍යාල අධ්‍යාපනය

On one side there is a great agitation for a pay rise fit for the self-respect of university teachers. On the other the programme of sending newly admitted students to army camps for leadership training has caused heated argument; the first group has finished and the training of the second began this week.

නලින් ද සිල්වාගේ ආසනික් විප්ලවය.

According to reports in the press and on television, what has caused the kidney disease among the people of Rajarata is arsenic in the water, put there by agricultural chemicals — and the arsenic problem has grown so large that there is arsenic in the rice we eat. The discovery was made by a group of scientists at the University of Kelaniya, in an investigation into the causes of the Rajarata kidney disease.