TEACHING, LEARNING, THINKING AND CREATING - I
The government media is giving publicity to a so-called decision of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Colombo to teach in English only. A former student of the University of Colombo who completed his degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Sinhala Medium, in his column in the flag bearer of government print media in Sinhala, praised this decision and said that the "renaissance" in Arts in the fifties and sixties in this country was due to those who had a knowledge in English, and wanted a few so-called left wing intellectuals in the University to take up the challenge, and see to it that the decision is implemented. He is of the view that the present "decline" in the Arts is due to the poor knowledge of English of the Arts students. The columnist gives the impression that he is knowledgable in English and that he reads books in English. What is interesting is that a few of the "intellectuals" whom he has mentioned had completed their first degrees in the Sinhala Medium. The columnist and those referred to by him, may be intellectuals according to some definition, however I am yet to come across any concept or theory created by any one of them in spite of their knowledge of English.
In any event it is not known whether the Faculty of Arts of the University of Colombo has taken a decision to teach only in the English medium. As it happens very often in the academia decisions are taken by the Secretaries to the ministries and even higher ups and other outsiders, and then through maneuvering the decisions are purported to have been taken by various academic bodies. The Dean and the academic staff of the Faculty of Arts, and the Vice Chancellor of the University who are maintained mainly by the indirect tax payers who do not know much English should make it clear to the public whether the Faculty has taken a decision to teach only in the English medium.
The English universities used the phrase reading for a degree rather than studying for a degree. The students of a university were supposed to read for a degree. There were lecturers but the lectures were supposed to be only guide lines and the lecturers were not supposed to teach the students. If at all the lecturers were supposed to teach how to study and direct the students to read on their own. The tutorials were considered to be more important than the lectures from the point of view of the training of the student, and the students were trained to study on their own. However, very often this ideal was not practiced, and the students did get much more than a reading list from the lecturers. I myself who spent three of the four years of my undergraduate days at Colombo did not have to read a single text book in the subject I specialised in, as the notes of the lectures, often copied from the other students, were more than enough to obtain a degree. After all, in answering a question paper, one had to write whatever one knew within three hours at most, and there was not enough time to write all that one had acquired from reading all those text books. However, this does not mean that one should not read text books, but one should be consciously creative when reading books. It is pointless to give the opinions of others in an essay or in an answer unless one does not express one's views on the subject.
What is interesting is that the universities never said that a student had to think for a degree or to do creations for a degree. It was always a case of reading for a degree. Of course, one does not need a Derrida to realise that what is read is also a creation in the sense that the reader and the writer do not mean the same thing by a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter or by a book. Anybody who is rooted in the Sinhala Buddhist culture would have known it by instinct. (I am of the view that instinct is acquired both through nature and nurture). Perhaps, it may be that the English universities, whom we invariably copied, knew this and it was the reason behind the authorities maintaining that the students read for a degree. Our universities could have easily contributed something to learning and said that the students, following the lecturers, had to imitate for a degree. Unfortunately we lacked even that amount of creativity, and all that we could say was what the English had already said.
If I am not mistaken, the Faculty of Arts at Peradeniya commenced teaching in Sinhala and Tamil media in the academic year 1961/62, and the first batch of students to obtain what are known as special degrees passed out in 1965. I know of many senior lecturers and professors in the Faculties of Arts in various universities in Sri Lanka who studied either in Sinhala or Tamil. Even in the faculties of science there are senior lecturers and professors (not to mention senior professors who are not found in the west - we are very much creative in establishing posts) who had their first year lectures in Sinhala or Tamil, my wife being one of them. They could not complete their degrees in Sinhala or Tamil as the Faculties of Science have been insisting, for wrong reasons, that special degree courses should be conducted only in the English medium. However, there are students who completed their general degrees in Science either in Sinhala or Tamil, and proceeded to UK, USA obtained their Ph. D.s, became university professors, and who publish research papers in English. It is true that none of them has won a Nobel Prize, but then neither those who completed their entire school education and the three/four year degree programme entirely in English, obtained their Ph. D.s, sometimes D. Sc.s, and became professors in universities here as well as abroad have been able to get themselves elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, London, let alone winning Nobel Prizes.
I know those who studied in English as well as those who studied in Sinhala, not only because I was taught in the secondary school and the university by those who had their entire education in English, and I had the opportunity of teaching students in the University Entrance class in Sinhala at a secondary school for a very short period soon after I sat my University Entrance Examination in the English medium, but also due to the fact that I myself had to change from Sinhala medium to English medium in some subjects after the third form or grade eight. I belonged to the "group in transition". In the O/L classes I studied Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in the English medium while studying Buddhism and Civics in the Sinhala medium. In the A/L classes I had to drop Civics. I know what the transition to English medium meant as I struggled with learning Chemistry, a somewhat descriptive subject, in English. I did not find any difficulty with History in grade eight or Civics in the O/L classes though they were more descriptive subjects than Chemistry, as I studied those subjects in Sinhala. In fact the only prizes I was able to win at school were those for History and Mathematics, two subjects which are at the opposite ends of the spectrum of "non aesthetic subjects".
It may be the flare that I had for Sinhala Literature (I had no opportunity of learning this subject after grade eight in school, though I read on my own), History, Politics (Civics), Philosophy (not learnt at school, except in the form of Buddhism in A/L classes, again reading on my own), Physics and Mathematics that made me interested in these subjects. However, what was the reason as to why I could not get myself interested in English Literature or English for that matter, and Chemistry taught in English. If as a schoolboy I could read with interest any article or book on Biological Evolution or Psychology written in Sinhala by authors including Messrs. E. W. Adikaram and Martin Wickremesinghe, or those on Sinhala Literature by the latter, the learned Bhikkus and members of the Hela Havula among others, what was the reason as to why I was not interested in English Literature or descriptive subjects taught in English? The only section I liked in English was Clause Analysis for which I usually obtained full marks while scoring very much below average in the other sections. At the O/L, if not for Mathematics and Physics which are somewhat independent of the medium of instruction, I would have opted for Arts subjects as those subjects were continued to be taught in Sinhala medium. If I had done Arts, I wonder whether I would find myself in the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo opposing attempts to teach only in English, or sacked some time ago. If the latter was the case I know that those "intellectuals" referred to above would not have given me even the right to present my case before a University Teachers trade union, in spite of their humane and progressive attitudes.
Transition from one medium of instruction to another is not easy as some people seem to believe. There may be some who could adjust to the transition, but one cannot generalise on these matters, even though generalisation is at the bottom of theorisation in western Christian systems of knowledge. I have found these difficulties for myself both as a student and a teacher. Even in Mathematics many students struggle with English after they "elect on their own" to change the medium of instruction, in the general degree programme. In the case of most students following the special degree programme the situation is not much different as they find English much more difficult than Mathematics. Given half a chance these students would answer at least parts of questions in Sinhala. In fact, some of the students in the general degree programme do so as the question papers are provided in both Sinhala and English. However, it is also true that many students would not admit so in public, and that they would very much insist that they did their examinations for the degree in English! It is due to a nonsense created by some sections of the society to the effect that a degree in English medium is "better" than that in Sinhala or Tamil medium. The third rate imitators in the Sri Lankan middle and upper middle classes, especially among the Sinhalas, continue to come up with their pet "theories" on the "value" of a degree in English medium. I challenge these imitators to come up with a single serious concept or a theory, (other than their inconsistent, irrational, illogical pet theories, within the matrix of Aristotelian logic, that being the only logic they know) that any one of them, including those who have held or are holding chairs in the so-called prestigious universities in the west, has created, especially in the Social Sciences (more relevant to the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo), having got their degrees in English.
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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