About the Budget
While this article credits the UNF Government for stabilizing a collapsing economy through strict financial control, it heavily criticizes the administration’s lack of a broader economic vision. The author argues that Sri Lanka must stop thinking like a small island and instead integrate its education and workforce into the global market. Rather than passively relying on the remittances of unskilled laborers while simultaneously exploiting them with excessive passport and agency fees, the government should actively train its youth for skilled international professions—such as nursing—and facilitate affordable foreign education to alleviate local bottlenecks and maximize global economic opportunities.
Media Reform
An interview with Ravaya editor Victor Ivan on media reform: the campaign to abolish criminal defamation, the proposed Freedom of Information Act, plans for a Media Training Institute, and his argument that Sri Lankan journalism has acted as a creator of disputes rather than an arbitrator of them.
මාධ්ය ගුරුවරුන්ගේ දැක්මේ දුප්පත්කම
Ivan ridicules Dr Ariyaratne Athugala, head of mass communication at Kelaniya University, who told Dinamina that repealing criminal defamation would be a crime and complained that the media dwell on Rookantha, Chandraleka and Anoja Weerasinghe. Ivan notes that international bodies seek repeal, that the law protects only politicians and officials, and that other laws already cover defamation. He also mentions a Colombo University media lecturer who said on state television, after the North-Western poll rigging, that Sri Lanka had too much media.
උපාධිධාරින්ගේ රක්ෂෂා ප්රශ්නය
About 30,000 graduates are said to be unemployed, and police reportedly attacked a group protesting at Temple Trees, while the government blames the JVP. Ivan points to a mismatch between university education and the job market, calls for rapid vocational training, notes the World Bank condition limiting the public wage bill, and argues that job growth depends on peace, so graduates should support it while the government hires on merit without political influence.
ඇස්සට දත නියවීම
With educated youth unemployed, Sri Lanka is importing nurses from Kerala; the Health Secretary expects 5,000 to be needed within five years and private hospitals already employ hundreds. Government hospitals have 14,750 nurses against 30,000 needed, and pharmacists, radiographers and technicians are also short. The piece asks why students who miss medical entry are not trained for these jobs, noting unemployment of 13 per cent among women and 19.6 per cent among those with A-levels.
අධ්යාපන ඇමතිට මල් මිටක්
The piece welcomes the decision to admit half of all Grade One pupils by computer lottery from January 2002. It describes how competition for popular schools has bred forged documents, a market in fake deeds and bribes to principals of up to Rs. 300,000 in Colombo, shutting out poor children, and urges that the lottery, drawn before parents, be implemented to the letter despite pressure from powerful quarters.
කඩුවේ අභියෝග ජයගැනීම
Ivan argues that S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Only policy, by confining youth to Sinhala, fed the two southern insurrections led by Wijeweera and the Tamil separatist struggle under Prabhakaran, whereas Indian leaders kept English for higher education. He welcomes compulsory English at A-level but calls English-medium science in 560 schools from 2001 reckless, given teacher shortages and a 64% O-level English failure rate in 1995. He proposes model schools and a state-funded eight-month English and computer course for the 35,000 annual A-level passes, run through international schools.
Truth of all truths!
With the French Ambassador entering the argument about the President’s educational qualifications, the debate has gone beyond Sri Lanka. An explanation from someone in that position ought to be impartial, Ivan writes, and hers is not.
දිකිරට බලලූන් සාක්කි දිම
Ivan responds to the French ambassador’s intervention in the dispute over the President’s educational qualifications. He faults her for ignoring the President’s office calling a questioning editor a ‘worm’, and uses The World of Learning directory and an OECD training inventory to argue that Sciences Po and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales were not then part of the University of Paris and that an école diploma is not equivalent to a university degree.