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Abstract
There is increasing interest in understanding and describing the links between education and ‘social cohesion’. However, the theoretical and empirical base for understanding these links is limited. There is also a shortage of practical tools for education policy‐makers and planners, to help them assess the impact of policies and investments, and to plan for future reform. This paper describes the initial development of an analytical and planning framework for addressing education and social cohesion within the context of a sector‐wide approach to education reform in Sri Lanka. A brief literature review suggests three inter‐connected domains in which links between education and social cohesion might be usefully analysed, together with three working hypotheses: (i) political economy/governance: education affects social cohesion through transparency and participation in education policy formulation, planning and management; (ii) equity/equality of opportunity: education affects social cohesion through the distribution of education resources, opportunities and outcomes; (iii) teaching/learning: education affects social cohesion through the development of certain competencies in students. Drawing on this analytical framework, research conducted in Sri Lanka is used to identify a set of interventions to promote social cohesion, with corresponding baseline, process and outcome indicators as benchmarks for measuring the progress and impact of intended policy measures. This process is described within the context of a ‘sector‐wide approach’ to education reform, intended to bring together the activities of the government and external partners within a single comprehensive medium‐term planning and budgetary framework.
Notes
1. The paper represents the views of the author, and not DFID.
2. The National Education Commission (NEC) is an independent Sri Lankan body established to advise the President on education, and to make recommendations to the government on education policy.
3. ‘The National Budget for the year 2005 will be prepared within a medium term budgetary framework…It will be a policy based and results oriented strategy’, (GoSL, Citation2004).
4. I am indebted to the principal authors of these two studies: Harsha Aturupane and Swarna Wijetunga.
5. The scope of the CIDA model is impressive; however, its breadth, depth and complexity also make it difficult to use.
6. For the WVS survey instruments, see http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/wvs‐ques4.html.
7. The authors substitute the Program for International Student Achievement (PISA) scores for IALS scores.
8. For example, the failure to implement the devolutionary measures of the 1957 Bandaranaike‐Chelvanayagam Pact, and the 1965 Dudley‐ Chelvanayagam Pact.
9. For controversy and subsequent reforms in textbook production and content, see Rasanayagam & Palaniappan, Citation1999; Wickramasinghe & Perera, Citation1999; Colenso & Wikrama, Citation2003.
10. I am grateful to my colleague, Harsha Aturupane, for pointing this out.
11. Sri Lanka has 97% net enrolments at the primary level, with about 83% of students completing the compulsory education cycle (to age 14); however, access to university education is limited, with a capacity to enrol only 2–3% of the age cohort in universities.
12. In this respect, the NBUCRAM formula has proved highly successful, reducing disparities between schools with similar characteristics from 1:300 in 1996 to about 1:15 by 2002.
13. Primary participation ranges from 98% (Western, Central, Southern, Uva) to 92% (North‐Eastern). Junior secondary participation ranges from 87% (Western, Southern) to 73% (North‐Eastern), with large intra‐province variations.
14. The proportion of primary students attaining mastery of their first language varies from 51% (Western) to 23% (North‐Eastern), with similar figures for Mathematics (NEREC, Citation2004a).
15. Less than 1% of government schools have both Sinhala and Tamil as languages of instruction.
16. See e.g. DFID, 2000; SIDA, 2001; NEC, 2003; Perera et al., 2004.
17. A SIDA (Citation2001) report reviewing peace education programmes in Sri Lanka noted the ‘…isolationism of current programmes whose individual goals may be salutary but which can have no sustained impact on the system as a whole’.
