Friday, February 27, 2009

Immaturity of readership of the rural student in Sri Lanka and the obstacles they face in accessing the global knowledge – Abstract


Immaturity of readership of the rural student in Sri Lanka and the obstacles they face in accessing the global knowledge – Abstract

BY – M C Rasmin, ICTA, 164/24, Kirimandala mavatha, Colombo 05, Sri Lanka. rasmink@icta.lk

Introduction

Reading is the life wire of human thought. It is also the easiest way to gather knowledge1. Many research articles on how to change man into a new person have been published. There are many indicators of readership not having grown to the required level among the rural folk in Sri Lanka.

It can be said that reading problems and the lack of interest in searching for global knowledge caused by such problems could be stated as a serious obstacle to obtaining knowledge about city and global order. There are many deep-rooted reasons for this situation among rural folk of Sri Lanka. These have so far not been brought to light at top level. The school, house or residence and so on cause lack of the growth of readership among Sri Lankan students.

Indicators of low reading habit

Lack of interest in reading, inability to read, poor global knowledge, wrong hobbies, poor general knowledge, lack of interest in day-to-day affairs can be mentioned as indicators of low reading habit. (For further details: Dorothy J. McGinnis and Dorothy E. Smith, Analyzing and rating reading problems (1982), page 14.

Evaluation of the knowledge level of rural students – some problems

Enthusiasm is a component of knowledge. The basic assumption in research and development plans put in place in Sri Lanka is that the Sri Lankan rural student population has low enthusiasm. But there are differences in enthusiasm between the rural student and the city student of Sri Lanka. While the rural student lacks insight into the outside world it cannot be said that he/ she has no enthusiasm.

The rural students are greatly enthusiastic about agriculture, fisheries, rural commerce, cookery, home gardening, childcare, dairy farming which are related to their lives. At the same time the city students are not even capable of washing and ironing their own clothes while most of them are good at handling computers, TV and modern gadgets. These students come to know about overseas events, sports and so on as when they happen.

Village students clean their toilets. When students of a village school were asked for the names of the US President and the Sri Lankan Prime Minister 90 per cent of them gave wrong answers. They had said that the Ranil Wickremesinghe was the current Sri Lankan Premier while George Bush the US President. When this two-pronged question was put to the city students 95 per cent gave the correct answer2. From this it is to be concluded that the environment of rural students is less resourceful than that of city students from the point of view of knowledge about such matters.

Causes of low reading habit

The low reading habit can be looked at from the following three angles

01. School-related causes

02. Home-related causes

03. Environment-related causes

Due to primary education not being properly imparted in rural schools two generations have been kept away from the urge for reading. As a result of teachers with a low level of education and less interest in reading being appointed to serve in these rural schools they encounter much difficulty in whetting the reading interest of their students. Not even one out of 10 schools has teachers qualified in language3. Reading rooms and computer centres are few in number and less efficient4. There was an incident where the computer room had been subject to damage by termites due to it being kept closed and not opened. In another school of the same zone the free connectivity made available to the school had not been used even by a single person for two years. The reading and the computer rooms remain closed most of the time. The teachers fear that if students enter these facility centres they will part with some of the equipment therein or cause damage to them. In most schools the resources are scant.

One up-country school has been operating in a hut for four years5. The state of the communication equipment too remains similar6. The teachers have a false perception about the students and their parents. They label the students derogatorily as dog (orphan / person without caretaker or guardian), buffalo (unintelligent person), tree (useless person), fool (person with no brains). Due to this students have lost interest in studies, reading research etc. (For more reading - Beatrice Avalos, Teaching children of the poor (1986), page 112)

Like the schools the libraries too have many drawbacks. Among these are: dearth of books, lack of books in the relevant language, non-availability of a qualified librarian, lack of orderly and professional library management, lack of contact of library between school and people. Since the teachers serve in the same school for 15 or 20 years like the students the parents too don’t have much esteem for the teachers. The students are distanced from the reading culture as a result of the lack of transport facilities, mal-nutrition, lack of education of parents, lack of proper motivation, people-friendly programmes of national media etc.

Some proposals for increasing the interest in reading - the conclusion

The following can be considered as some of the important proposals:- Integration of the school, village and students with the book-oriented structure; building up students’ talents, leadership, information and communication technology skill etc. with the school as the centre; reviewing the activities of the rural libraries, teacher replacements at reasonable frequency in a manner that the separation (hiatus) of students and parents from teachers will be minimized; while converting ‘Wisdom Outlets’7 established in the country into reading centres, ensuring that they are equipped with materials for world knowledge in the mother tongue; launching second language training / teaching properly through the e-society programme8; launching a project for raising the reading experience of students under the e-Sri Lanka9 initiative; provision of materials under ‘Silpasayura’10 in the mother tongues; integrating the student community with information and communication; setting up community radio11 facilities where programmes that develop the personality of students; provision of the facility of mobile libraries for students with no libraries in their villages.

Footnotes

01. Agavizhi (Tamil Readership Magazine), Vizhuduhal Publication, Colombo p 32.

02. Field Research conducted at Monaragala ( a Remote village) and Colombo ( urban )

03. Field research conducted at Horowpothana, North central Province

04. Total Government schools in Srilanka are 9790 and Number of permanent libraries available is 4000. Total Privet schools in Srilanka are 87 and Number of permanent libraries available are 68. Total International schools in Srilanka are 87 and Number of permanent libraries available are 87.

05. Thinakkural Weekly, 2nd week, Upcountry supliment.

06. Television available only 50 percentages of the schools and computer only 10 percentages of schools.

07. Thinakaran Daily, 2009 02 20

08. In srilanka There 650 Tele centers (Nenasala) available and 1000 centers to be placed up. Www. nenasala.lk

09. www.icta.lk

10. www.icta.lk

11. www.shipasayura.org

12. In Sri Lanka there 6 Community Radio channels’ functions without enough deeper conscious of Rural development.