What is EDC (Sri Lanka) and why is EDC (Sri Lanka) prioritizing Preschool Education?

EDC stands for Education Development Consortium founded in Jaffna in 2023 by a forward-thinking group of intellectuals and professionals. Its preoccupation is with education, particularly preschool education.

Education, in our view, is the only thing which can meaningfully liberate human beings. A population, which is not humanely educated and not independent thinking, are easily manipulated, fooled and exploited in the hands of self-centered and corrupt ruling classes in Sri Lanka. They have been manipulated and fooled again and again. They have been divided and ruled along racial, religious, linguistic and majority/minority lines. One race or one religious group can be set against another in order to get elected to power through whipping up racial and/or religious hatred, riots and armed conflicts lasting several decades. The British colonial divide and rule strategy has been perfected and applied in Sri Lanka for 75 years by our rulers. This has been the history of Sri Lanka. Even the same religion with different sects for example Christian Protestants and Christians Catholics in Ireland were set one against the other and made to kill each other for more than a century by the British rulers in Ireland. So, this divide and rule deception is also the history of the world. But most countries including Britain have become a little more enlightened and moved on from this state of affairs mainly, I would say, through emancipatory education. Remember Tony Blair’s speech “Education, Education, Education” and his peace building efforts in Ireland. But this change is yet to take place in Sri Lanka. There is a glimpse of hope under the newly elected NPP government. But without putting education right in the country, there is no chance of lasting peace, prosperity and better life for people in Sri Lanka, especially for Tamils.

Although compulsory free education was introduced in Sri Lanka before most countries in the world and literacy levels shot up from 30 – 40% to 96 %, it has not inculcated independent, humane and egalitarian thinking within the population. Far too many people are leaving school after 13 long years of so-called education from schools as drop outs, failures and unemployable teenagers. Education has been largely a failure in Sri Lanka.

This is largely due to the fact that 80 % of children are not nurtured and prepared through well-organized preschools to be able to confidently navigate their educational journey through the primary, secondary and university education system in Sri Lanka.

Why is pre-schooling so pivotally important in the lives of children. There is well researched, well established and universally accepted scientific evidence that all children are born with more or less the same number of brain cells (neurons), approximately 1 billion, and if they are properly nurtured with love, sensitivity, care, nutrition and a congenial and safe learning  environment to learn and discover through play under the guidance of a qualified preschool teacher, they will attain 90 % of their brain development before the age of 5, leaving only 10% to be developed during the rest of their lives. Nearly 80% of children in Sri Lanka miss out on this high level of brain development because they don’t have the privilege of this preschool experience. So, they become uneducable and leave school after 13 years in education as unemployable dropouts indulging in antisocial and criminal activities. This is the rationale for prioritizing preschool education.

Tamil youths dropped out of education, who suffered discrimination by the state, had less access to employment in Sri Lanka, either took up arms against the state or migrated to other countries in search of greener pastures or became criminals, drug addicts and antisocial activists in their own villages and cities. But the Sinhala youth either rebelled against the state or got jobs through preferential treatment or joined the forces and served the racist and corrupt Sinhala rulers to oppress the Tamil speaking people. The discovery of mass graves in the North and the Torture Chambers in the South tells the tragic history of what took place in Sri Lanka. We believe the failure of education is the key to the present state of affairs. We believe an egalitarian, humane and uplifting education system only can salvage Sri Lanka. 

Projects we have undertaken so far are as follows:

Training of English Teachers in the Northern Province

We employed the British Council a) to do an on-line testing of all 700 English teachers in the Northern Province to ascertain their competence, which revealed that only about 50 teachers are competent to teach English b) to train 3 batches of 20 teachers at approx. Rs. 400,000 per batch but we could not continue this for the remaining teachers due to the high cost involved c) to train 20 of the best teachers as trainers over 2 years at a cost of Rs. 12 M so that they can continue to train the remaining 600 teachers.

Training of Preschool teachers in the Northern Province

There are about 1600 preschools, most are not well run especially in villages and 3200 teachers, nearly 95 % of them are not qualified to teach in preschools.

We entered into an MOU with University of Jaffna (UOJ) and University of Vavuniya (UOV) and developed a 2-year part time preschool diploma curriculum to train the 3200 teachers in batches: 60 at Jaffna Campus and 60 at Kilinochchi campus of UOJ, 45 at UOV at a cost of Rs. 60,000 per teacher. Total cost is about Rs.9.9 M

Recently we also started a similar program for 38 teachers at the Jaffna College of Technology at Rs.50, 000 per teacher, total cost being Rs.1.9 M

Total cost for the first batch of 203 teachers is Rs.11.8 M (£30,000). The first batch will graduate within the next 2 months.

Recruitment of the second batch of 203 teachers is under way and we need to pay their university fees of Rs. 11.8 M within the next 2 months. This is payable in 2 instalments to the above mentioned 3 institutions. 

To continue and expand the above work, obviously we need to raise money from all willing donors. We are targeting particularly donors of a special kind among the second and third generation of Sri Lankan Tamils, born and educated in Britain, who are largely disconnected from their cultural roots of their mother country as a result of displacement of their parents and grandparents caused by repeated ethnic violence unleashed against the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Our aim here is a) to reconnect the younger generation of Tamils to their historic and cultural roots in their traditional homeland so that they become conscious of their origin and identity and b) to create a human bond with the Tamil brothers and sisters who, unlike us, got trapped within Sri Lanka and had to face the full brunt of the 30 year long war and therefore we have a responsibility to help them to rebuild their lives.   

We are therefore asking you not only to donate funds but also to become partners to promote the educational development of all children especially the preschool children. We need your voluntary involvement to raise funds through standing orders, donations and through other energetic fund-raising events such as walking, running, cycling, swimming, hill climbing and other sporting events.

Every pound you donate will result in transformative changes in the lives of the children we left behind in our homeland.