Sri Lanka::
* Sri Lanka's teachers take leave while students fail examinations Sunday, May 20, 2007, 14:34 GMT, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
May 20, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha says that out of the country's 200,000 government teachers, 40,000, or 20%, take leave on any given day.
Addressing a prize giving ceremony for a Colombo school, the Minister further said a recent study has revealed that 18% of students cannot read or write when they reach the sixth grade.
Meanwhile, 51% of candidates in the 2006 December GCE Ordinary Level Examination were unable to pass, Department of Examination statistics revealed. Out of the 525,000 candidates, 21,813 failed all ten subjects. In nine schools in Colombo and in 38 schools and 40 monks’ schools islandwide, not a single student qualified for GCE Advanced Level study.
Over 57% failed in mathematics; over 51% failed in science and over 63% failed in English. Ninety percent answered the compulsory geometry problems incorrectly in the mathematics paper.
The chairman of the Ceylon Teachers’ Union, Joseph Stalin Fernando, meanwhile rejected the Ministry of Education’s attempt to put the responsibility on the teachers. He asked what the thousands of administrators including the recent Ministers of Education had done with all the perks and benefits provided to them.
Education: Quality and quantity a sad mismatch!
By Deepal Warnakulasuriya
Only half the G.C.E. Ordinary Level students who sat for the last year examination had qualified for the G.C.E. Advanced Level. Nearly 524,000 candidates sat for the examination at 3,946 examination centres islandwide. out of them, 377,000 were school candidates while 146,000 were private students. According to the latest data of the Department of Examinations, from 1998 there has been a steady decline in the pass rate.
Every year the results were analysed by the Department but was not disclosed to the general public. But the National Symposium of Education which was held on May 12 under the directive of the Education Minister Susil Prema Jayantha made a platform to table their findings.
Commissioner General of Examinations Anura Edirisinghe while studying the gradual decrease in the number of candidates who sit for the examination from 1998 to 2006, noted that was a marked increase in the numbers that qualify for G.C.E. A/L.
Only 48.7 percent have passed their examinations, while 51.3 percent failed to qualify for their next target. As the Department of Examinations says 21,813 candidates had failed to secure even a single pass. It was shocking to note that 4,128 were from the Colombo district. And 3,564 from the Central Province, 3,404 from Southern Province, 2,668 from Sabaragamuwa Province, 2,277 from the Uva Province, 2,056 from the North Central Province, 2,039 from the North Western Province, 773 from the Eastern Province and 704 from the Northern Province.
These are not just statistics. But we are compelled to see the education level of our next generation. The policies which change whenever a new regime takes over are not the remedy for this. Instead we should have a national policy which guides students on various job oriented paths after the O/Level Examination without leaving almost 50 percent as failures.
According to the Department's analysis 258,975 candidates had sat for the English Language paper but the percentage who passed the subject was 36.82.
As the Commissioner General believes in that is also using the 'tak tik tuk' theory and they are competent on writing. Anyway, Over 63 percent has failed the subject. When we go on to Mathematics paper out of 259,263 only 42.63 percent had passed the subject. In the science subject the percentage of failed students is 51.65. Furthermore there are over 20 percent of students who were unable to get a simple pass in the mother tongue, the Sinhala language.
In this situation who should be blamed? Anyway it says that the country's education system does not meet the ultimate needs of the present society. It would be difficult to slip away from the responsibility, just putting the blame on the politicians who make instructions to change the syllabus, structure or text books.
But lack of qualified teachers is a major reason for this. In that case, politicians should stop recruiting incompetency teachers to satisfy them by just giving jobs. The teachers who teach the "theory of memorising" and reproducing at the exam are also responsible for this pathetic situation. The officers who 'nod' their heads silently to say 'yes' for any wrong by the higher level officials also cannot escape from this blame.
Setting the question papers is another issue which should be spoken. The question papers should be easily understood by the student as the question paper means only to test what the candidates know and not what he/she doesn't know. The paper marking procedure is also another topic should be considered in this subject.
Tuition culture which had been introduced in the country had to be controlled. Instead of giving a sound education, this kind of education centres have become the places where the young show-off in fashionable attire and just meeting places.
If the authorities can make a reward system for teachers, it would work in two ways. They would be compelled to do their jobs to meet the targets and at the same time the teachers who conduct private tuition will be prioritising teaching in schools.
In addition to the Commissioner General's revelation, National Education Commission (NEC) in a survey conducted with the participation of 4054 students from 70 schools representing all provinces (except North and East) found that the 18 per cent of grade six students could not write at all. Twenty Eight per cent of grade 10 students could not write legibly and only 35 per cent of them could take down a dictated passage. Anura Edirisinghe's analysis also revealed that the Pirivena institutes which gifted intellectuals to the society in the history have failed in their attempts with forty pirivena institutes which not a single student passed the exam.
The gravity of the problem, none of the students were qualified for the G.C.E. A/Level in nine schools in the Colombo district. But the country's each province has an Education Minister with several Parliament level Education Ministers. Anyway Minister Susil Prem Jayantha being there, we still breathe a sigh of relief. He has vowed to change the situation within three years. At the same time, he had also said that he would step down from this portfolio, if he fails to do that.
We have seen politicians who had kept their words for the betterment of people at least in other countries like Bolivian President Evo Morales, we believe in Minister Prem Jayantha's words. President Morales and his law makers accepted pay cuts as they wanted to "share the country's situation."
But, the Minister's directive to the Zonal Educational Directors telling them to decrease the failing percentage by 5 per cent is not enough. How can it be done? Just giving the candidates extra marks to reach the government's targets? Anyway, what we see is changing the present education system making the way to improve the quality of the education a must.
Have we ever thought of adopting or changing the English education system which we grabbed several decades ago?.
But what about providing jobs for students who perform well subject wise at the O/Level examination instead of giving them only a dream of further free education at a government university. These things should be taken seriously by policy makers, educationalists and relevant authorities.
Before conclusion, it is important to go through a quotation from the
Hindustan Times, "Sri Lanka has the highest level of literacy (91%) in the Asian region.
An overwhelming majority of its school going population (4 million) enjoys free education from kindergarten to the university undergraduate level.
But the quality of the education does not match the quantitative achievements."
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Monday, 4 June 2007
Change Management
Individual Change Management
An early model of change developed by Kurt Lewin described change as a three-stage process. The first stage he called "unfreezing". It involved overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing "mind set". Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed. In the second stage the change occurs. This is typically a period of confusion and transition. We are aware that the old ways are being challenged but we do not have a clear picture to replace them with yet. The third and final stage he called "refreezing". The new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to previous levels.
Some change theories are based on derivatives of the Kübler-Ross model from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book, "On Death and Dying." The stages of Kubler-Ross's model describe the personal and emotional states that a person typically encounters when dealing with loss of a loved one. Derivatives of her model applied in other settings such as the workplace show that similar emotional states are encountered as individuals are confronted with change.
A Formula for Change was developed by Richard Beckhard and David Gleicher and is sometimes referred to as Gleicher's Formula. The Formula illustrates that the combination of organisational dissatisfaction, vision for the future and the possibility of immediate, tactical action must be stronger than the resistance within the organisation in order for meaningful changes to occur.
The ADKAR model for individual change management was developed by ProSci with input from more than 1000 organizations from 59 countries. This model describes five required building blocks for change to be realized successfully on an individual level. The building blocks of the ADKAR Model include:
Awareness – of why the change is needed
Desire – to support and participate in the change
Knowledge – of how to change
Ability – to implement new skills and behaviors
Reinforcement – to sustain the change
Organizational Change Management
Organizational change management includes processes and tools for managing the people side of the change at an organizational level. These tools include a structured approach that can be used to effectively transition groups or organizations through change. When combined with an understanding of individual change management, these tools provide a framework for managing the people side of change.
The role of the management
Management's first responsibility (and that of administration in case of political changes) is to detect trends in the macroenvironment as well as in the microenvironment so as to be able to identify changes and initiate programs. It is also important to estimate what impact a change will likely have on employee behaviour patterns, work processes, technological requirements, and motivation. Management must assess what employee reactions will be and craft a change program that will provide support as workers go through the process of accepting change. The program must then be implemented, disseminated throughout the organization, monitored for effectiveness, and adjusted where necessary.
Gabrielle O'Donovan has designed a strategic implementation plan for a culture transformation programme which is largely based on primary research. The first phase 'strategic planning and design' includes a series of steps; back to the drawing board to revisit the company purpose, form the strategic management team to oversee implementation, create programme vision and define strategy, organize the workforce and design the core programme and cultural embedding mechanisms that will support it. The second phase 'strategy implementation' includes these steps; communicate vision and roll-out, manage the human landscape plus maintain momentum and solidify ground made. The final phase 'evaluation and readjustment' focuses on the measuring of results and also planning for the future.
Working with assumptions
Process Oriented Psychology by Arnold Mindell talks about the field in which each human relationship exists. Its application field, Worldwork, intends to transform systems by shifting roles that people unconsciously hold in a system.
Dialogue (by David Bohm) is a new form of communication in large groups that is based on the suspension of assumptions, thus letting the common knowledge of a group emerge.
Appreciative Inquiry, one of the most frequently applied approaches to organizational change, is partly based on the assumption that change in a system is instantaneous ('Change at the Speed of Imagination')
Theory U of Otto Scharmer who describes a process in which change strategies are based on the emerging future rather than on lesson from the past.
The constructionist principle
The map is not the territory: The map/territory relation is proven by neuroscience and is used to signify that individual people do not have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. It has been coined into a model by Chris Argyris called the Ladder of Inference. As a consequence, communication in change processes needs make sure that information about change and its consequences is presented in such a way that people with different belief systems can access this information. Methods that are based on the Map/Territory Relation help people to:
become more aware of their own thinking and reasoning (reflection),
make their thinking and reasoning more visible to others (advocacy), and
inquire into others' thinking and reasoning (inquiry).
Some methodological frameworks that are based on this principle are:
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), an eclectic school of psychotherapy developed by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Robert Dilts, and others;
Circular Questioning and other techniques basically developed in Systemic Family Therapy;.
Gestalt Psychology, a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies;
The concept of the Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge and other management thinkers
Scenario Thinking, a method that helps people to create stories about the future
Change management in industrial plants
Since complex processes can be very sensitive to even small changes, proper management of change to industrial facilities and processes is recognized as critical to safety. In the US, OSHA has regulations that govern how changes are to be made and documented. The main requirement is that a thorough review of a proposed change be performed by a multi-disciplinary team to ensure that as many possible viewpoints are used as possible to minimize the chances of missing a hazard. In this context, change management is known as Management of Change, or MOC. It is just one of many components of Process Safety Management, section 1910.119(l).1
Reference
^ Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper and Row.
^ Senge, Peter; C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers (March 2004). Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. Society for Organizational Learning. ISBN 0974239011.
^ Argyris, Chris (Autumn 1982). "[1]" (PDF). Organizational Dynamics,. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ Tucker, Kate. "The Milan Approach To Family Therapy: A Critique". Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
Worren, N. A. M.; Ruddle, K.; and K. Moore. 1999. "From Organizational Development to Change Management: The Emergence of a New Profession," The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 35 (3): 273-286.
Beckhard, R. 1969. Organization Development: Strategies and Models, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Hiatt, J. 2006. ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and the Community, Learnng Center Publications, Loveland, CO.
Kubler-Ross, E. 1970. On Death and Dying, Macmillan Company, England
An early model of change developed by Kurt Lewin described change as a three-stage process. The first stage he called "unfreezing". It involved overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing "mind set". Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed. In the second stage the change occurs. This is typically a period of confusion and transition. We are aware that the old ways are being challenged but we do not have a clear picture to replace them with yet. The third and final stage he called "refreezing". The new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to previous levels.
Some change theories are based on derivatives of the Kübler-Ross model from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book, "On Death and Dying." The stages of Kubler-Ross's model describe the personal and emotional states that a person typically encounters when dealing with loss of a loved one. Derivatives of her model applied in other settings such as the workplace show that similar emotional states are encountered as individuals are confronted with change.
A Formula for Change was developed by Richard Beckhard and David Gleicher and is sometimes referred to as Gleicher's Formula. The Formula illustrates that the combination of organisational dissatisfaction, vision for the future and the possibility of immediate, tactical action must be stronger than the resistance within the organisation in order for meaningful changes to occur.
The ADKAR model for individual change management was developed by ProSci with input from more than 1000 organizations from 59 countries. This model describes five required building blocks for change to be realized successfully on an individual level. The building blocks of the ADKAR Model include:
Awareness – of why the change is needed
Desire – to support and participate in the change
Knowledge – of how to change
Ability – to implement new skills and behaviors
Reinforcement – to sustain the change
Organizational Change Management
Organizational change management includes processes and tools for managing the people side of the change at an organizational level. These tools include a structured approach that can be used to effectively transition groups or organizations through change. When combined with an understanding of individual change management, these tools provide a framework for managing the people side of change.
The role of the management
Management's first responsibility (and that of administration in case of political changes) is to detect trends in the macroenvironment as well as in the microenvironment so as to be able to identify changes and initiate programs. It is also important to estimate what impact a change will likely have on employee behaviour patterns, work processes, technological requirements, and motivation. Management must assess what employee reactions will be and craft a change program that will provide support as workers go through the process of accepting change. The program must then be implemented, disseminated throughout the organization, monitored for effectiveness, and adjusted where necessary.
Gabrielle O'Donovan has designed a strategic implementation plan for a culture transformation programme which is largely based on primary research. The first phase 'strategic planning and design' includes a series of steps; back to the drawing board to revisit the company purpose, form the strategic management team to oversee implementation, create programme vision and define strategy, organize the workforce and design the core programme and cultural embedding mechanisms that will support it. The second phase 'strategy implementation' includes these steps; communicate vision and roll-out, manage the human landscape plus maintain momentum and solidify ground made. The final phase 'evaluation and readjustment' focuses on the measuring of results and also planning for the future.
Working with assumptions
Process Oriented Psychology by Arnold Mindell talks about the field in which each human relationship exists. Its application field, Worldwork, intends to transform systems by shifting roles that people unconsciously hold in a system.
Dialogue (by David Bohm) is a new form of communication in large groups that is based on the suspension of assumptions, thus letting the common knowledge of a group emerge.
Appreciative Inquiry, one of the most frequently applied approaches to organizational change, is partly based on the assumption that change in a system is instantaneous ('Change at the Speed of Imagination')
Theory U of Otto Scharmer who describes a process in which change strategies are based on the emerging future rather than on lesson from the past.
The constructionist principle
The map is not the territory: The map/territory relation is proven by neuroscience and is used to signify that individual people do not have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. It has been coined into a model by Chris Argyris called the Ladder of Inference. As a consequence, communication in change processes needs make sure that information about change and its consequences is presented in such a way that people with different belief systems can access this information. Methods that are based on the Map/Territory Relation help people to:
become more aware of their own thinking and reasoning (reflection),
make their thinking and reasoning more visible to others (advocacy), and
inquire into others' thinking and reasoning (inquiry).
Some methodological frameworks that are based on this principle are:
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), an eclectic school of psychotherapy developed by Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Robert Dilts, and others;
Circular Questioning and other techniques basically developed in Systemic Family Therapy;.
Gestalt Psychology, a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies;
The concept of the Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge and other management thinkers
Scenario Thinking, a method that helps people to create stories about the future
Change management in industrial plants
Since complex processes can be very sensitive to even small changes, proper management of change to industrial facilities and processes is recognized as critical to safety. In the US, OSHA has regulations that govern how changes are to be made and documented. The main requirement is that a thorough review of a proposed change be performed by a multi-disciplinary team to ensure that as many possible viewpoints are used as possible to minimize the chances of missing a hazard. In this context, change management is known as Management of Change, or MOC. It is just one of many components of Process Safety Management, section 1910.119(l).1
Reference
^ Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper and Row.
^ Senge, Peter; C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers (March 2004). Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. Society for Organizational Learning. ISBN 0974239011.
^ Argyris, Chris (Autumn 1982). "[1]" (PDF). Organizational Dynamics,. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ Tucker, Kate. "The Milan Approach To Family Therapy: A Critique". Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
Worren, N. A. M.; Ruddle, K.; and K. Moore. 1999. "From Organizational Development to Change Management: The Emergence of a New Profession," The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 35 (3): 273-286.
Beckhard, R. 1969. Organization Development: Strategies and Models, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Hiatt, J. 2006. ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and the Community, Learnng Center Publications, Loveland, CO.
Kubler-Ross, E. 1970. On Death and Dying, Macmillan Company, England
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