The Plight of Modern Family; Gender Equality and contemporary changes

The human society is comprised of men and women. The society has given specific roles based on the gender which has now changed dramatically. Both men and women go out for work and provide financial support for the family. This is mainly because of the economic conditions which force women to earn and the high educational and professional standards of modern women.

In the ancient pre-historic world, men go hunting or forging while women stay at home caring for children and doing other household chores. Human physique had adapted to that lifestyle as well. A woman can do patient work such as weaving, creating artifacts etc and she can endure longer than man. On the other hand, man can unleash massive energy for a short period of time helping him to pursue and kill animals. Almost all of the human races were patriarchal. There was no place for women other than home. Education of women is neglected but the knowhow of doing household work had passed down from mother to daughter. The slightest of improvements for the working of women happens in the 19^th century western world. Women were allowed to work as governesses for children of wealthy households. Poor woman were also recruited as factory workers and laborers to fuel the growing demand for labor in the newly industrialized economy. But prostitution being the world’s oldest job welcomed women with open hands as it always does even now. Apart from those, economic contribution of the women for a society was very limited. Although Sri Lankan women are somewhat liberated than their other Asian counterparts, women going to work was an alien concept for the conservative Sri Lankan society.

In the modern society, women had defied the traditional gender roles. The main reason for this revolution was improved education standards for girls. In Sri Lanka and throughout the world, schools are established for both sexes. Sometimes, women outperform men in education field. In Sri Lanka this scenario is well observed. Since independence Sri Lankan women are coming out of their typical job roles specified to them (schoolteachers, clerks etc) into engineering, finance, manufacturing and entrepreneurship. With the universal suffrage, women have their political freedom so it is not a surprise at all to see a Sri Lankan woman becoming the world’s first female prime minister. Now Sri Lankan women are pushing their independence to the limits as discussions on men-women equality and feminism being carried out.

This newly found independence has an immense impact on the typical role of woman in the society. In the past a woman had always been under the protection of her father, husband and elder son in various stages of life but now they have financial and sexual independence. It is up to them to decide whether to get married to a man or to get married to a job. Even in Sri Lanka, highly educated high achieving young women belong to late 80s and early 90s generation tend not to get married or to set aside their marriage until they get elevated in educational and professional life. Sometimes young women who get married don’t like to have children. Even if they have children, family duties are most of the time put in a second place making room for educational or career obligations.

Women must have their independence. We can’t turn the clock and go to a medieval society again. Financial contribution of a mother in a family is needed like never before in this economically hard times. Giving financial and personal independence is not a bad practice since it gives some sort of self-esteem to women. At least girls should have opportunities to apply the knowledge they have gained from education to the national economy.

Temporary Solutions

Flexible work schedules can be introduced by employers. Of course, maternity leave is grated for women at childbirth but that is not a guarantee that the woman may have quality time for her family. Standard 9 to 5 office schedule should be replaced with the permission to come and go to office at any time. Modern Information Technology (IT) companies are adapting this practice. It is much easier for them to emphasize on flexible schedule because all those organizations have target oriented work pattern. For them, all that matters is you have completing your work before deadline. When, where and how you are going to do your assigned work is not important. This helps a woman who is a mother and a wife to adjust her time according to family obligations. Company policies regarding women also need a change allowing more flexible times, reduced workloads and ‘work from home’ opportunities

Giving reduced workload for women employees is also among discussion but that raises questions about salary. Employers are reluctant to pay the same salary for a woman who is doing less work than her male counterpart. Although this practice goes against gender equality, it is much better than women working all day long without having time for her family.

Work from home is another alternative to smooth up to busy work schedule of modern professional. This doesn’t mean that you are always in doing whatever the task assigned to you in home. Regular visits to workplace may be needed but combined with flexible work schedules, this is a good solution. Development in IT field has broken the time and distance barrier. An employee can connect to office computer network form her Laptop or home computer. Video conferencing can be used to communicate with people anywhere in the world so time is dramatically saved. A busy mom can look after her child and do household chores even while she is doing her office work. She can do her work at night or early in the morning with the comfort of her cozy home.

What lies ahead?

All the above mentioned solutions are temporary. With the diminishing of the gender roles the concept of family may be abrogated in a couple of generations (it has already happening). Human society is in constant evolution. It is inevitable that traditional gender roles will soon be wiped out and we may come to the age that we no longer distinguish men and women as their contribution to the society and economy is more of less becomes the same.

We need to set aside the traditional beliefs that a family makes a person complete and it is needed to the personality development of a child. More and more single parent homes and artificial insemination pregnancies and surrogate motherhood gives both men and women to procreate without the express help of the other gender making the ultimate independence of sexes form each other and freeing them from the burdens of the family.

Whether the conservatives like it or not, it is inevitable that family, as an institution is failing as the concept of marriage has already failed. Embracing a and preparing for a future with enhanced personal independence, diminished gender roles and less and less family and emotional ties should be the wise thing to do. 

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Sri Lankan Education System Needs an Overhaul

Education is a basic need for a human being.  The right to education is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We get education until we die. Humans are the only creatures in the world who have the capability to pass their collective knowledge in to the next generation. New knowledge piles up from generation to generation making humans capable of mastering their atmosphere and become the most successful creature in the world. There are two kinds of education systems; formal education we get from educational institutions and informal education. When we look at the formal education system in Sri Lanka, a need to change the system arises.

Formal education is Sri Lanka started with the introduction of Buddhism. Mahaviharaya in Anuradhapura which was controlled by Buddhist monks was the main knowledge hub. Only Buddhist philosophy was discussed at first. Writing was not popular at that time so knowledge goes from teacher to student orally. Sinhalese literature was in its golden age in ‘Kotte’ kingdom. Even our Kings were scholars who were fluent in many languages. When Sri Lanka, came under British rule, old education system had changed. Buddhist temple centered education was replaced by missionary schools.

Later, with the efforts of Colonel Olcott to introduce Buddhist schools and C.W.W Kannangara’s free education, a student is getting education from government schools freely. Because of the education system, Literacy rate of our country is 93% and we have universal literacy rate among young people. Every child is getting a school and sometimes scholarships for education.

Sri Lankan education system although seems to be fine for an outside eye is actually plagued with problems.

Our education system is not up to date. The world is changing and new knowledge is piling up but the content we learn is very old and outdated. New subjects are left out. This situation is mostly present in technical education in which the things which we learn will be obsolete in a couple of year’s time. Knowledge delivery methods are very old. Teacher-oriented learning is still practiced while in education systems in developed counties are already in more dynamic student-oriented system. Our children are still being spoon fed by teachers. That was even present in our university system as well. The disadvantage of the above approach will become apparent to students when they go abroad to read for a foreign degree or when they try to read for a post graduate degree.

From the moment a child is entered to the grade one, parents and teachers are pushing the child only to be excelled in academic achievements. Sports, aesthetic and extra-curricular activities are virtually being thrown out of a child’s time table thus hindering the personality development of the child. Our children’s creativity is much low compared to children in other countries. Endurance (both physical and mental) is nil. Children are getting depressed and committing suicide more often. All because of the imbalanced personality created by our education system.

Fierce Competition for popular schools is a controversial point. It is true that many schools don’t have even the basic resources. Government needs lot of money (of which the government is always running short) to develop schools. Even all the schools get equal resources, people still try to send their children to popular schools in Colombo and other major cities for their prestige and for better opportunities their child will get for being a student in those schools, for instance getting a high-paid job or securing a good marriage proposal. 

 Restructuring the education system is one of the most challenging tasks that lie ahead. We should focus on an education system for the future needs.Changing education system from teacher-centered to child-centered is needed. Child should be given room to discover the existing knowledge and create new ideas from it while teacher should be playing a supportive role.

Sports, aesthetic and extracurricular activities need to get introduced as part of the education process. A rapid update of the content of textbooks is also needed. New technologies and foreign language education should be considered of utmost importance.  This will all become in vain if the resources both physical and human is not developed in schools so infrastructure development is also needed.

Policy makers need to understand the fact that the money spending on education is not a waste but is an investment for the future. Increasing the percentage allocated for education of the GDP is not merely enough. Quality of education should also be increased. Children are our future. Without them getting a good education to take up the future challenges, all of our present work will be rendered useless so it is everyone’s duty is to revive our education system from the sinkhole in which it is buried.  

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Tiger Parenting; an Option Worth Considering

When we look at today’s youngsters, we can clearly notice a growing problem. The new generation seems not to be focused on education, they lack extra-curricular activities and aesthetic skills, and they don’t have respect for adults and teachers. School violence has become a major issue in majority of our schools. Overall, we feel that our children are becoming a lost generation.

Parents have an immense impact on child. It is the way of parenting that makes a child good or bad, lazy or active, compassionate or violent. As an Asian country, the bond between Sri Lankan parent and their child is greater than western countries. Thus the way which a parent interact with their children is extremely important. In general, Sri Lankan parents have a reputation for being tough and strict. It is harder to find a person who is not subjected to corporal punishment at home or school but are those parenting methods effective? Do they create better children? Many educationists, doctors and teachers now reject the idea of corporal punishment to make the children disciplined.  What needed is a strict parenting concept which is effective and which don’t harm children physically and mentally. 

A concept called tiger parenting may come in handy when dealing with the above dilemma. Tiger Parenting was introduced by Dr. Amy Chua, a Junior Professor of Harvard Law School. Her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” created a worldwide debate on parenting. She describes her own experience of bringing up her two daughters in a strict manner. Dr Chua was brought up by traditional Chinese parents so that influence helped her to develop a method to guide her children to excellence.

Tiger parenting doesn’t mean that parents need to use caning, whipping or other types of corporal punishments to make the children disciplined. It is a system to make specific targets for children in terms of their academic and social achievements and constantly monitoring and guiding them by whatever means to accomplish them. Tiger parents believe that their children can achieve almost anything with strict control and discipline. They control what their children may read, what TV programs they may watch, who their children be friends with etc. Main point in tiger parenting is the active involvement in child’s academic life by parents.

Dr. Amy Chua’s parenting contradicts liberal western style parenting in which the self esteem of a child is put in front of his/her parent’s ambitions but are they similar to traditional Sri Lankan parenting? Of course Sri Lankan parents may have a vision of their children’s future but do they have a practical approach or a plan to guide the children? Sri Lankan parents may very well be involved in child’s education up until the grade 5 scholarship exam which is named notoriously as “The exam of the parents”. Then gradually parental involvement in child’s education diminishes. When it comes to studying for Advanced Level Examination, students are completely on their own sometimes lost in a competitive battle without a clue about what field they are going to choose in the future. Parents only realize the lack of their guidance when a child got failed in the exam.

It is fair to say that today’s children are unbalanced personalities. Children and their parents only focus on academic performance while completely forgetting that a child should have a competence in academic and aesthetic fields alike. A true super child should be able to make a balance in all the above sections. Preparing the child for future career demands is also important. He or she should be ready for jobs which have not been invented yet. Obviously mathematics and science play a crucial role in the future knowledge based economy so pushing children more and more to mathematics and science related education is a good move. Perfectionism is always administered by a tiger parent. Any grade except straight ‘A’ is not accepted. Rewarding children for just passing an exam makes them lazy. Children should understand that rewards and compliments are very hard to gain but when they do, it reflects the perfection in their hard work.

The ultimate goal of tiger parenting is to shape the child in to a balanced person. While concerning on academic excellence only may cause unnecessary stress on children but pushing children to be involved in sports and aesthetic activities will make a balance. We should give our children what they lack most; discipline and self-control. Being a disciplinarian may not a pleasant experience at first but when the child realize the true meaning of being strict, they will start to respect you. Dr Chua’s daughter Sophia also expressed her gratitude to her mother’s parenting style by an open letter published in the New York Post in January 2011.

Today’s younger generation is inexperienced and easily be misled. It is their parents’ duty to shape their child like steel in a mould and to make a respectable person from them. Most probably it might be a bitter experience at first but when the child immerges as a self-disciplined and balanced person; it will be the pinnacle of strict parenting. Dr Chua’s tiger parenting may not be entirely feasible for Sri Lankan child upbringing but nevertheless it may provide some valuable clues. I strongly recommend all the parents to assess the effectiveness of their parenting style and make the necessary adjustments to it.

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Keeping Children Safe: Child Sexual Abuse Epidemic in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has celebrated another children’s day amidst of celebrations, national functions and more and more promises of making a world a better place for children. It is the same country which experienced a tragic rape and murder of a girl-child and a murder and a decapitation of a small boy. Although there were many incidents of child-murders those two incidents have questioned the consciousness of the Sri Lankan psyche towards children. In a country where religion is quintessential entity and the bond between children and parents are very strong, it is important to dig in to the recent wave of violence towards children.

How it happens?

Indeed, the child-friendliness of our society is questionable. Although raping and murdering children was a rarity, child sexual abuse is a common occurrence. Sometimes the offender is a close personal relative or even the child’s own father of sibling. It is not uncommon to hear stories of even male children getting abused by their fathers and older sisters! Children are always subjected towards domestic violence physically, emotionally and economically.

What are the consequences?

Physical and psychological trauma of such harassment shall remain with the child for the rest of his/her life seriously incapacitating their development and their ability to trust others and forming healthy relationships. Even a minor incident of groping can cause a personality disorder later in the child’s life. There is a serious tendency for the victims of abuse to become abusers themselves creating a vicious circle in violence as well.

Are we giving enough care for the children?

The main reason for child abuse is neglecting children. This can happen due to various reasons. First is economic. In most of the rural areas, mother of a family may go abroad for a foreign employment in the Middle-East leaving the children in the care of the husband or the grand-parents. In most of the cases, the husband may form an extra-marital relationship with another woman. The lack of supervision makes the children an easy prey for sex-offenders.

Young-adults also become victims of sexual abuse. With improper guidance and protection from the adults, these hormone-driven youngsters may form unhealthy relationships hindering their education and future. Not only economically deprived rural children are falling in as victims of the latter phenomenon but also children from middle-class urban families.

What are the solutions?

Vigilance, Protection and Guidance are the three key parts in the solution but you should be seriously concerned with your ability to nurture and care for the children economically and socially before deciding to bring one to this world at the first place. Most of the rural families do not have adequate economical means to support large families today. This was not true in several decades back although the economic and health conditions were far worse, but a rural-agrarian family could maintain five or six children. It is impossible now even to maintain a one-child-family with the rising inflation and skyrocketing commodity prices and ever widening amenities in life so it is important to have at least a stable income and securities for the future to plan having kids. This might prevent the mother from going abroad for economic means.

If you have decided to have children, then it is quintessential to keep an eye on children always specially on very small children. The two child-murders happened recently could have been avoided if the parents were vigilant on the whereabouts of their children and at least make the home secure during all time.

Educating children from an early age is essential. Children should be taught neither to trust anybody nor to accept anything given by others.  In the incident of decapitating a male-child, the killer persuaded the child and lured him to an abandoned house on the promise of showing some toys only to slice him into pieces.  Schools have lot to do in educating children property concerning their age category. Parents should guide their children and teach them the responsibility to keep them safe from possible sexual offenders. It is surprising to see children as old as 15-16 years become victims of sexual abuse and become pregnant without the proper sexual education.

There is a heated debate on bringing up the capital punishment in Sri Lanka again. As a matter of fact, the capital punishment is already here. It is the President who refuses to sign the papers to make someone go to gallows. I do not believe that there will be a reduction of violent crimes and specially rapes if capital punishment in reintroduced unless it was carried out live in public television! Capital punishment is not given for rapists at the first place so the legislations need a change as well.

Prevention is always better than cure. It is truer than ever when it comes to sexual abuse because the repercussions are irreparable. It should be made clear that there is no silver bullet for battling child sexual abuse. The civil society, media, law enforcement agencies, parents and schools have to be the vanguard in the battle. Then only we can make a better future for our children. 

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Popular Schools Phenomenon in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has one of the highest literacy rates in the world on a par with most of the developed nations. Primary and secondary education is Sri Lanka is entirely delivered by the school system which pushes the child along a race track for 13 years. School years define the future of the child. Although our country has a good literacy rate, education system is plagued with problems such as unequal distribution of educational resources, outdated study materials and many more. De-escalation of this problem is vital for our children’s future.

Among the various problems, unequal distribution of educational resources is one of the main problems. A child needs a resourceful environment for education. Ultimate goal of education is to give life skills to children to face the future world. School education should facilitate the child to get a good education and a good job for the future. School itself plays a vital role in successful education.

There are a handful of schools which we identify as popular schools. They draw the baseline for the school education in our country.  There are two kinds of popular schools; private schools and government public schools. The former were opened by western missionaries to give education to the Ceylonese according to western values and Christian religious principles. They have a rich history and the almost all of them were in Colombo except a handful in Kandy and Galle districts. The latter were government funded public schools. They can be early missionary schools or Buddhist schools established as a response to the missionary schools.

Sri Lankan parents ready for the battle of putting a child to a popular school even before the child is born. Sometimes these preparations take place even before a couple gets married. Competition is fierce for the limited number of vacancies available in the popular schools. Parents need to summon up all their persuasive powers such as money, political influence and other corrupt methods to get a foothold for their child in one of the popular schools

I’ve passed the grade five scholarship examination but lacked the marks to attend to a popular school (which I regret so much to this day) but I was lucky to have schooled in the best school in my province which was far away from the capital. I have experienced the struggle to find a popular school by my parents at first hand.

Generally popular schools have good teachers, study materials and infrastructure. Even though the government doesn’t provide much monetary support for development, the schools have extensive old pupils network and means to gain money. Plenty of opportunities for sports and extracurricular activities are available for the students. Attending a popular school is a status symbol in Sri Lanka. It can also be a family legacy as well. That’s why most of the people are using the reputation of their school to get job opportunities, to secure a beneficial marriage and to climb the social ladder.

Some not so popular schools have good teachers, study materials and infrastructure exceeding if not on a par with popular schools but are in no position to compete with them because of the lack of reputation. Sri Lankan people have an irrebuttable presumption that popular schools are good no matter how many good schools emerge. This was mainly because of the rich history and traditions associated with those popular schools which lead to prestige.

Central colleges opened by C.W.W.Kannangara for educating the masses can compete with the popular schools in quality of education and resources. As witnessed in the Advanced Level examination and various other sports festivals, education and extracurricular activates are also excellent in these schools. But the heartbreaking truth is that by being the school for the masses, they have become less preferable to the more prestigious popular schools in the capital of Sri Lanka.

Grade 5 scholarship is one of the main entry points for the popular schools. They require high marks at the exam. There are even talks to abolish the grade 5 scholarship examination altogether. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be done. Scholarship exam is the only window of opportunity for a rural child to experience the facilities in the city and to discover new opportunities. If the grade 5 scholarship exam gets abolished, the only remaining thread for a rural child to hang on for a better future will be lost.  The popular schools will only be reserved for the rich and the class gap may widen dramatically.

Popular schools are here for stay. We can’t eliminate the elevated status of the popular schools but by empowering and developing the rural schools, restoring the old glory of the central colleges and especially increasing the opportunities in popular schools for the students by upgrading their facilities to accommodate more students can be taken to diminish the negative factors of popular schools. I do believe that lobbying for the above changes in the education system should be the utmost priority of the so called ‘protectors of free education’ if they really want to preserve the right of free education.

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Bringing Up a Mathematical Child

(Photo courtesy : http://plus.maths.org )

Mathematics is always a fascinating subject to me. I liked it a lot since my early childhood but sad thing was I was not good at it. It is like a desire which cannot be fulfilled at any cost. In my primary can secondary education, I got through mathematics subject in flying colors only due to my dedication and hard work. After reaching my advanced level education in school, I have chosen mathematics subjects. The real nightmare came at this point. I was lost in that vast world of higher mathematics. Advanced level examination is the hardest exam for anyone in Sri Lanka and mathematics stream is far the hardest of the four streams; Math, Bio, Arts and Commerce. It was like putting to sea without knowing how to swim. I was shattered, broken and sank in to despair in a downward spiral.

Years have passed, but my life was not better at all. I couldn't reach my goals even I tried my best. I’ve changed paths frequently without success nothing was able to explain me what had happened to me in Advanced level Math education. . It took a long time to establish myself in another educational stream and open the door to tertiary education.

 Finally I realized what was wrong with me at that time. I couldn't bridge the gap between secondary education mathematics which I've learnt up to grade 11 and Advanced Level mathematics. Since there is a great difference in the content of these two studies, unprepared student can’t survive in it.

It is a well known fact that not everyone can be a Math genius. Even in primary classes we can see students who can understand mathematics clearly and students who can’t. The latter has difficulty in understanding how numbers and pattern form, how they behave overtime and how can we use them. That is why most of the students complain about mathematics learning difficulty. In some cases like mine, students tend to learn mathematics my explicitly memorizing (cramming) concepts. This method will work until some level but for advanced mathematics which we learn in Advanced Level classes, this can’t be applied. To learn and understand mathematics, a person needs a math trained brain. 

Mathematics can be learnt only through understanding the concepts and making them a part of brain. When a child is born, his mind is tuned to work in a pre-programmed way. That means the child contains special skills and interests in a particular field. For example, some children are clever in mathematics, some are music, some don’t have special tendency for anything. This phenomenon created people with different skills and competencies. Future mathematicians and musicians are created in this way. It is good to keep the balance of people’s skills but real problem here is mathematics knowledge is required in every aspect of life. This included analytical skills, problem solving skills as well. In order to secure a job, a person must have a sound mathematical knowledge. In another words, it is not wrong to say that this new competitive world is only for math geniuses, not for anyone else.

So every newborn child need to be transformed in to a math genius in the future. This poses a tremendous challenge to parents and adults because not every child’s brain is hardwired to mathematics. The good news is the mind of a child is like a piece of clay. We can mold and shape that in to anyway we like. In other words we can create a mathematician or a musician out of our child by gradually programming his mind.

Mind programming is a delicate task. This should be done carefully. Shaping the mind should begin as early as possible. Most of the time, we ignore the need to exercise and stimulate a child’s mind. In animal kingdom, learning skills to walk, to hunt, to feed begins as early as possible. Most of the knowledge comes to animals from playing with their peers. Humans also should stress on giving mathematical and problem solving skills in a game form to children. Almost all of the children are keen to learn and explore. They don’t know the fear and shame of failure. It is a well known fact that the creativity of a child hinders when he/she gets old. Unfortunately, today what humans need most is creativity. A program is needed to extract children’s hidden creativity.

Games may hold key to children’s mind training. Surprisingly parents are ignoring the need of quality toys and games for their children. Lego Blocks are a good tool because it enhances the creativity. Mathematical games are also available. Teaching mathematics need to start from kindergarten. Our mind is similar to any other muscle in our body. It only strengthens and grows when we exercise it. School curriculum also need to change giving more and more weight to mathematics and science.

Certainly we can’t be satisfied with the present generation’s creative ability and knowledge of mathematics. As the engine to power up human civilization lies on mathematical minds, powering up the future generation is needed desperately. That shall be our duty today. Are we ready for that? 

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