The Grade One battle

The year-end is a stressful time for parents, what with children readying to enter primary school for the first time. Popular schools, usually in urban centres, are inundated with applications as parents use any means within their power, including unlawful ones, to get their children into a “good” school. This annual spike of bribery has prompted authorities to monitor 17 schools and, to date, 31 children in Royal College alone are to be de-listed after it was found that their documents contained incorrect information. Two vice principals of the same school are also under investigation.  

This is not a new phenomenon. For decades, under-resourced schools have resulted in a lopsided system where schools are graded according to their merits and sought after by parents. In Colombo and other key cities, the prestige factor is also weighed. Parents know their children have a better chance in life if they’re linked to the influential networks of prestigious “Colombo 7” schools and will usually do anything to get their progeny into these institutions irrespective of their educational excellence or other social constraints.

So entrenched is this situation in Sri Lanka that most employers decide the employability of a youth based on the school they attended rather than the university. This is akin to being hired on the basis of a high school in the US, rather than the university they attended. Sri Lanka’s rather unique system is partially due to the public university system, which does not differentiate strongly enough between higher education institutions and the simple fact that the well-heeled not only go to the best schools locally, they are likely to do that for tertiary education as well. Few can deny there is also an elitist tilt to the whole grading system, which is an overhang from Sri Lanka’s colonial times.

Obsession with schools also means many children have to travel long distances to school. A comparison between the Western Province and the Northern Province, for example shows that children in the North typically travel less than five kilometres to school often walking or travelling a short distance by bike or public transport whereas their counterparts in Colombo could travel twice that distance or more. This means that children face stress and long hours on the road rather than enjoying their time as kids. Parents have even been known to change houses or rent a place closer to their children’s schools in an effort to reduce time spent in traffic.

Understandably, this makes reducing bribes for school admittance very hard. Bribery at one point then often spills over into other segments of life and is justified as a necessary evil. Parents, however much they may detest the practice, usually have no choice. Even when parents do report cases of bribery, usually in the hundreds every year, little action is taken, allowing the practice to continue; nor are the parents who attempt to be honest rewarded for their actions. Bribe giving has become so pervasive that principals soliciting sexual bribes in return to admitting kids to their schools usually grab headlines nearly every year.

Without a holistic approach to improving the standards of schools, especially in rural areas, the sad truth is bribes for school entrance will not only continue but likely grow. If a top down approach happens, it will only prompt the offenders to become creative in their ways of obtaining bribes. A lesson no society should have to learn.