Dec 11, 2022Why female teachers must wear sareesWe recently posted this teaser on some of our social media profiles (with the asterisk to footnote that a clarification would be forthcoming, lest someone believed we were actually advocating for the saree 😯): Some people thought we were being sarcastic and gave us ha-ha reacts, but we are dead…Education5 min readEducation5 min read
Feb 26, 2021Parallelograms vs TaxesIf you’ve seen this meme, you might’ve agreed with it: learning how to file taxes is important (and carries penalties for doing it wrong) whereas most adults don’t use parallelograms. But let’s dig deeper… “how to do taxes” could mean two things: How to file taxes correctly — i.e. …Education3 min readEducation3 min read
Feb 6, 2021English: The teachers are not the problem[සිංහල පරිවර්තනය සඳහා අවසානයේ ඇති වීඩියෝව නරඹන්න] On the 30th of January, responding to a question by an aspiring English teacher still unemployed more than a year after completing the Higher National Diploma in English and passing the English Teaching examination, the President asserted that “හොඳටම කතා කරන්න පුළුවන්, ඒක…Sri Lanka4 min readSri Lanka4 min read
Oct 30, 2020The “Performing” ArtsDo we need art? Why? Of course, unless we are Philistines, we enjoy “consuming” works of art — listening to songs, watching plays and movies, admiring a painting or sculpture, reading novels, reciting poetry, etc — but is that the only reason we need art? …Art3 min readArt3 min read
Oct 20, 2020University 4.0Much of the contemporary narrative of how #covid19 is changing, and will change, higher education is focused on how teaching and assessment will move from physical spaces to virtual spaces. But it’s not as simple as that — for example, students in fee-levying universities have been asking “why are we…Education10 min readEducation10 min read
Oct 1, 2020The importance of Free PlayRather than a “distraction” from education, the Report of the Special committee on education (Ceylon), published in 1943, considered Free Play to be essential for education: This is how they identified the role of the parents: “The good parent is he and especially the good mother is she who, without…Play3 min readPlay3 min read
Sep 18, 2020Toxic Competition in Schools and Mental HealthThis is a draft which currently has only a few anecdotes Lawanya’s story Lawanya was struggling in school (and needed a lot of help from her friends) because of epileptic fits; after treatment her performance improves — but now the friends’ parents don’t want the friends to help her and the mother…Education2 min readEducation2 min read
Jun 25, 2020Private Education: Our stanceAs creating a more equitable world is a key component of our purpose for education, we were never fully comfortable with launching as a private school — price barriers in education exclude people. On the other hand, it’s inconceivable that our public education system will pivot to offer Self Directed…Education7 min readEducation7 min read
Jun 25, 2020“Education is a Right. Not a Commodity”: the ironyPossibly the most prominent slogan employed in the defence of free education in Sri Lanka (and perhaps also elsewhere) is that “Education is a Right, not a Commodity”. While this attempts to addresses one (provision to everyone, not just the privileged) of the two most pressing issues in Education today…Education8 min readEducation8 min read
Jun 13, 2020Why do we invest in Education?Globally, education represents a significant investment — not only in terms of the direct (whether public by taxes or private by fees) and indirect (lodging, transport, uniforms, stationery, etc) expenses, but also in terms of opportunity costs (e.g. …Education5 min readEducation5 min read
