Sunday 27, April 1997

A principal's reminiscences

A request has been made by a group of past pupils of Sandalankawa Govt. Central School that I should write a short article about the college during my 13 years stewardship, from 1959 to 1971. I had better not indulge in a feast of reminiscences though pleasant memories crowd into my mind somewhat vaguely, after a lapse of nearly 40 years.

First of all let me explain why I decided to take to teaching as a vocation in life.

In July 1993, when I was the Warden of Belvoir College International, the staff and students felicitated me at a simple ceremony on the completion of 50 years of almost continuous service in the field of education, for my first teaching appointment was at Ananda Sastralaya, Kotte in July 1943. Though I had a Colombo University degree in English and Economics and could easily have obtained a lucrative position in government service, the mercantile sector or a state bank or even a teaching post in my old school, S. Thomas College, offered to me by the Warden at that time, Canon R.S. de Saram, I felt a strong urge to devote my knowledge, skills and talents to the teaching and training of boys and girls in rural areas, who were denied the opportunities of a good public school education.

There were a few of my old school and university batch mates who made this same choice and ended up at the peak of their profession.....men like Srinath K. Goonewardane, Dunstan Fernando, Lennie Gunawardane, Oliver de Soysa, Gerald de Alwis, P.E.G. Mendis and V. Thanabalasingham. I firmly believe we did so because we idolised our teachers and treated with veneration those with Ph.D's and MA's from Oxford and Cambridge who left England to serve in schools in this remote island because of their urge to introduce the best features of the highly acclaimed British Public School, Eton and Harrow to S. Thomas College. These great teachers who dominated our lives in school in the good old days were endowed with such strength of character, intellect and personality that passing years had not effaced their memory and influence on us.

When I took over the principalship of Sandalankawa Govt. Central School I was told about the pioneering efforts of my illustrious predecessors in office Mr. Hector Fernando, R.D. Sirisena, C.L.W. Abeygunasekera and Ariyarathna Jayathilaka who worked with dedication, laid a solid foundation and gave the school an honourable name in the Kurunegala district. It was left to me to build higher on the foundation laid by them and put the college on a forward, upward and progressive path, and armed with my experience as Deputy Principal of Hanwella Central College, Principal of Goda Uda Senior School and Deputy Principal of Henegama Central College, I felt confident that I would be more than equal to the task of guiding the destiny of the school with smoothness and ease.

When I drove in to the college campus on my first visit I must confess to a feeling of deep disappointment at the type and lay out of buildings on the campus, for they were certainly nowhere near the large spacious, impressive, type-plan, two-storied, multi-functional, all-inclusive blocks of classroom halls, laboratories, boys' and girls' hostels beautifully laid out on a ten acre former coconut estate, in Henegama. What met my eyes here were typically rural school long ground-floor rows of classrooms one behind the other, an old style assembly hall and two small hostels for government scholars, not to mention the small and compact principal's quarters.

However, I accepted the situation as a challenge, for it is not buildings alone that make a good school but the quality of work done within them that counts in the long run. What caused me the greatest delight was the full sized playing field in the heart of the school, even though there was no sign of a cricket pitch in the centre, or goal posts on two sides.

I assumed duties at a period when several radical reforms were taking place in the educational structure of the country....1958-1971....comprising the change in the medium of instruction from English to the national languages, the take-over of private schools, the introduction of HSC classes, the diversification of the curriculum with the inclusion of technical and vocational studies and the modernisation of syllabuses in Mathematics and Science. Emphasis, therefore, had to be laid on the provision of specialist staff, buildings, functional laboratories, workshops and equipment.

It was my good fortune to cultivate the trust and friendship of the famous Subasinghe family of Sandalankawa, Mr. Vincent Subasinghe, Mr. Tudor Subasinghe, T.B. Subasinghe and Mr. Sirisena Subasinghe who belonged to gentry in the village in the heart of the coconut triangle.

A good principal should provide good leadership, inspiration and proper management. He should be able to clearly define policy and have a vision for the school. He should be a specialist in at least one area of instruction, be a good classroom teacher, a capable organiser, a firm disciplinarian, a good sportsman and over of sports and a gentleman. Above all, he must be transparently honest. I have listed above the criteria for judging a good school head. If my performance rating is 10 per cent above the half way point, I will be more than satisfied.

I must admit I had my shortcomings. Foremost among them was an obvious lack of proficiency in Sinhala speech making, although I passed the departmental proficiency examination and was promoted to a Grade 1 special post.

As a disciplinarian in tempering justice with mercy, I was somewhat liberal with the latter quality although at staff meetings I praised and encouraged teachers who were reputed for the firm handling of students and not molly-coddling them. I insisted that good lessons preparation and good teaching were the only answer to the problem of class central. A few members of the older generation of teachers argued, `There is only one way to control the rascals, Wallop them.'

My response was `No, be a good teacher. Teach them well'

In order to raise the standard of discipline it was necessary to re-organise the prefect system of the school. Senior boys and girls were chosen for their leadership potential, their prefectorial qualities as well as their performance in sports and studies and they played a vital role in enforcing obedience to school rules and maintaining good discipline in the classrooms, hostels and the playing field. They also acted as a link between the student body, the head and the staff.

Another area of concern which called for remedial action was the standard of English which was lower than at Henegama GCS obviously the dramatic reduction in the number of hours of exposure to English had its deleterious effect. While carrying out the routine duties of administration and monitoring closely the curricular innovations being introduced under the educational reforms that were being implemented, I found time to do a full load of English teaching in the SSC and HSC forms for I was in charge of handling the in-service training courses for English teachers in the Henegama circuit and was saddled with a similar in-service training course for English teachers of the Pannala circuit. English Days including interclass competitions in rendering nursery rhymes, English songs, traditional Scottish, English and Irish airs, skits and comic sketches, as well as memories popular English poems and speech extracts from Shakespeare's plays gained immense popularity in our school.

As most teachers were unfamiliar with the melodies of the songs, selected by me, I took immense delight in going round from class to class training students to sing `O Danny boy', `My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean', `Whispering Hope', `Oh No John' `My Pretty maid' `blowing in the Wind' `Where have all the flowers Gone' `O Island in the Sun.'

Needless to say, the Terminal English Day class competitions proved to be very entertaining, popular and were a great success. As excellent set of Trained English teachers and graduates like Mr. Austin Salgado, Mrs. Salgado, Mr. Justin Fernando and Mrs. Indra Ranasinghe helped to make the new approach to English teaching a success, thereby raising the standard of English in the school.

Having excelled in a variety of sports at S. Thomas' with colours awards in hockey and football, as well as captaining the University hockey team, I saw to it that sports played a large part in the life of the boys and girls by giving the maximum exposure to a variety of games, which earlier had been limited to volley ball, netball, athletics and softball cricket.

The hostellers cleared the playground of weeds and dug up the area demarcated for the centre pitch which was thereafter flattened and levelled with a roller borrowed from Mr. Tudor Subasinghe. Thereafter, we purchased a full sized matting which the school could hardly afford hence bats, balls, pads, and gloves had to be long-term credit purchases from Chands and Sportsman Ltd., with whom I had dealings as sports master in my earlier schools. I personally coached the House teams, and felt delighted at the great enthusiasm generated among the boys for this wonderful game. House matches were keenly contested and played with intense rivalry.

The school produced some very talented players who represented the 1st XI in matches versus Ibbagamuwa Central, Henegama Central, Gampaha Senior School, Maris Stella College and Joseph Vaaz College.



(To be continued)