Proud to be included

It doesn’t take years of painstaking research to see that Sri Lankan society is deeply divided along lines of language, religion and culture. Apart from the obvious ethno-religious differences, the populace is also fragmented along lines of caste (more subtly now than before, thankfully, and largely restricted to the sphere of matrimony), income, level of education and a host of other arbitrary constructs. 

Of the less insidious of these is a friendly rivalry among past pupils of schools, especially at the privileged national school level, that is equal parts juvenile and quaint. This phenomenon goes back decades, but it appears to have taken a new, more hostile flavour of late, if a recent trend on the local social networks is any indication.

Facebook, the most popular social network in Sri Lanka, was inundated with profile pictures proudly proclaiming the owner’s affiliation to the school where they received their primary and/or secondary education. 

It appeared to be sparked by an unverified story (or fake news, as they’re known in the popular discourse these days) about a predominantly Sinhala Buddhist school accepting Muslim teachers into its folds. 

The story was subsequently proven to be false but the trend had already set off and soon seemingly half the netizens of Sri Lanka were declaring unwavering loyalty to their alma mater.

An interesting observation to be made here was that many who had studied in so-called ‘big schools’ - especially in Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna and Galle - had joined those schools in their late teens, having spent a majority of their formative years in a school considered inferior. 

Curiously, these were among the loudest on the ‘proud to be from <insert school name>’ bandwagon, raising all sorts of fascinating anthropological questions. On the other side of the spectrum, there were the usual social justice warriors mocking the enthusiastic past pupils for what they deemed their immaturity and unhealthy attachment to their childhood. 

Some went as far as calling them “grown adults who never left school”, failing to see that a majority of Sri Lankan children make lifelong friends in their places of education, leading to a sense of community that they will understandably cherish long after reaching adulthood.

Tertiary education in Sri Lanka remains at less than desirable levels (out of 122,000 that qualify, only 17% get into a state university), to say the least, and in the absence of a massive university alumnus comparable to the college fraternities in the United States, for example, schools here (up to Advanced Level) and their past pupils associations are what a majority of students form the strongest social links to. 

That said, even those who studied at the most prestigious universities either here or abroad still tend to attach a special significance to their place of primary or secondary education, sometimes above that of their university. 

‘Where did you go to school’ is a question that’s casually thrown about at nearly every level of human interaction in Sri Lankan society, highlighting vaguely-defined socioeconomic class barriers that need addressing.

Like any internet meme, this trend too shall disappear from the public conscience sooner rather than later, but in light of the discourse that it has led to, one question seems pertinent: is your school proud of you?