The Polymath, the Rebel, the Woman and the Misfit

“Factional” reflections on our education system

The new government is reviewing university admissions, apparently. And the criteria for evaluating A.Level results.

This got me thinking. About education in general. The strengths and weaknesses of our system.

Rather than spelling out my thoughts (literally), I thought it fun to explain my ideas through four “factional” characters. Four people for whom our education system has not been optimal.

The Polymath

“We’ll need to move”, said Grand-uncle Ayoub. Mock-ruefully. A disaster, indeed. Ayesha had devoured every single book in their small village library. Itself being small and perched on a small strip of land. That parted the Batticaloa lagoon and the vast Bay of Bengal.

That didn’t stop our ten-year-old from visiting a nearby village, and borrowing from friends. She loved the lyricism and curve of the Sinhala language. Especially the novels and the poems.

Sinhala was her first love. But Ayesha was no one-trick filly. One day, she said, she will win a Nobel Prize. Not in literature. But in Economics. So when it was time to pick her A. Level subjects, no one was surprised when she chose Sinhala and Economics. Her third choice was, however, problematic.

She was determined to study Mathematics. But her school, like many in the country, didn’t offer “science” subjects. Happily, there was a solution. The “boys school” next-door, did offer “Combined Maths” for the A. Levels. And so Ayesha and her father visited the principal.

It was a bit unusual. But, technically, not against regulations. So, four times a week, a girl in a Hijab sat at the front of the class. During Maths lessons at the school next door.

But grand-uncle Ayoub lamented. Being so smart, Ayesha could have been an “IT Man”. Or even an “Engine”. But with just one “Maths” subject, few of the local universities would have let her in. So what was she to do?

Thankfully, this was not a problem for Ayesha. She had already applied to several colleges in the United States. And half a dozen had accepted her.

Our lover of Sinhala and avid reader, commenced her undergraduate studies in a middle-tier university somewhere in the mid-west of America. With a “full-ride”. After two years, she got a transfer. To the Ivy League.

The last time I checked, Ayesha was in a quandary. She had applied to the eight best PhD programs in Behavioural Economics. Worldwide. And had got accepted to all eight. With funding.

Was it going to be Cambridge, Massachusetts or Cambridge, England, or some other “Cambridge”?

The Rebel

Bala left home at the age of four. Armed only with a small back-pack and a blue and green bottle of water. He was going to “shrek his fortunes”. (He knew a lot of “big words”)

Happily or unhappily, he was seen by a horrified Aunt Selvi. Attempting a crossing of the mighty Galle Road. He was summarily picked up and deposited back at the family home in Wellawatta.

Bala built his first radio at the age of eight. His first synthesizer at 12. At 16, he wrote his own operating system, claiming that memory management in Linux, was “full of crap”.

His parents might have been pleased. But they were not.

Young Bala, failed, not one subject, but all eight subjects at his O.Levels. “I thought he was a smart kid”, said Aunt Selvi (on a brief visit back from Montreal). In reality, Bala used to sit at the back of the class. And dream of his latest idea. To split processor threads, or multiplex his data bus.

By the time I interviewed Bala for a Software Engineer gig, he had already started a small business. Building websites and other IT odd-jobs. He “failed” the interview, because unlike most “SWEs” he hadn’t gone to university. So didn’t know the answers to many “well-known” questions.

But I could see Bala was special. Even something of a genius. And so I hired him. I dedicated a few hours per week to tutor Bala on “conventional” Computer Science. He picked up everything in next to no time.

One of the senior tech-leads wants me to fire Bala. Why? Apparently, he “doesn’t have a degree”. And he’s talking on his phone. “In Tamil”

He should have said, “Because he can do my job. And much better.”

“And I don’t want you to fire me.”

The Woman

At Christmas, Carloboy never bought dolls. With his meagre bonus, as a watcher at HSBC, he’d buy Crystal a toy truck or a train. The first time he’d done so, his daughter had taken it apart. Piece by piece. And put it all back together again. Perfectly.

Crystal had always wanted to make cars. Not ordinary cars. But special cars. Like “that Musk fellow” that Carloboy admired so much.

Old Mr Ramanujan was suspicious. When Crystal chose “Physical Science” for her A.Levels. “Why are all these girls doing Maths? Maths is a man’s job”.

The nine-teen girls at Old Ramanujan’s solitary combined maths class, learnt little Algebra or Calculus. Only Ramanujan’s lamentations on the curse of feminism. And the wife that hen-pecked him at home. So, like everyone else, Crystal signed up at the Nugegoda tuition “market”. Right next to the actual market. Complete with the perfume of rotting cabbages.

Crystal was an immediate sensation. Or at least not quite her, but her short skirts and beautiful legs. Most of the benches were full of boys. The few girls were “told” to wear denims and over-sized shirts. And were doing their best to merge into the background.

Crystal was both “inappropriate” and no-one could keep their eyes off her. And for some “object” the boys were happy to “look at” so enthusiastically, they couldn’t even afford mere politeness. Instead, Crystal was only presented with abuse. Centered on her ethnicity and gender. She was just another “Burgher Bitch”. Or its more colourful Sinhala translation.

Today, Crystal is PA to a founder and CEO of a tech startup. She still wants to build cars one day. And perhaps produce her own Tesla. Or maybe Vega. Happily, her boss is supportive. Having jumped many of the hoops that tripped-up Crystal. Herself.

Maybe. Someday.

The Misfit

Medicine was running in Dan’s veins. Not because he was ill. But because his father, grandfather and his father were all famous doctors. An ancestor had been personal physician to Shri Vikrama Rajasinha. The Royal Doc had been renown for treating skin ailments. And had famously cured a particularly nasty boil off the royal posterior. For which he was awarded several thousand acres of land. Known as the “Passa-Yata Korale”.

Dan was short for “Dhananjaya”. Only his musician friends called him “Dan”. Dan had always wanted to be a drummer. But “the family” constantly badgered him against it. “You must be a doctor”. “You must be a doctor”. That was all that was “drummed” into our drummer.

The family seemed to have a pathological hatred of all things musical. And with good reason. Another ancestor (on Dan’s mother’s side) had been chief drummer at the Dalada Maaligaava. But this piece of history was hidden. Because drummers were, apparently, “differently-abled”. Caste-wise. Worse still, he was “of the low-country”. Hence, while Dan inherited his maternal ability and affection to drumming, he inherited his paternal name. And expectations.

Dan passed his A.Levels well enough to “get into” Colombo Medical College. Most medical students faint or are at least queazy at their first dissection. But soon get used to it. Dan had the unique accomplishment of fainting at all. Every single one. And even during clinicals. He couldn’t stand the sight of needles or blood.

No one knows how. But amazingly, Dan made it through Medical College. Aunty Selvi claims that it was his father’s and uncles’ (all all-important Docs) “influence”. I don’t really know. Whatever happened, Dan became a doctor.

But he never practised as one. He went back to his beloved drumming. And is now part of quite a popular band.

Concluding Commentary

• Ayesha. Our A. Levels and University system is focussed on a narrow set of disciplines. Ideally, choosing a diverse set of subjects should broaden one’s options. In reality, they narrow. Our educational system has no place for generalists. Or polymaths like Ayesha. But other parts of the world are happy to gain our loss.
• Bala. Solving any problem involves exploration and exploitation. A. Levels narrowly exploit a small set of criteria known to correlate somewhat with University performance. Instead, it should have at least a small degree of “exploration”. Where Rebels, like Bala, might have some (even slight) chance of admission. The lack of exploration leads to local maxima. Our university graduates probably do a reasonably good job. But we are unlikely to produce genuinely great people. No Einsteins or Teslas.
• Crystal. A. Levels are supposed to be the “great leveller”. Whether you are rich or poor, if you get the same mark, you get the same opportunity. Sadly, it is much easier for some people to get “marks” as opposed to others. And anyway, the purpose of public education is not to be fair. It’s to produce educated people that the country needs. A system which significantly oppresses half the population is not what the country needs. Nor is it fair.
• Dan. Many people at university don’t want to be at university. That is because Sri Lankans have some irrational respect for some fields over others. And a certain narrow definition of “Education” in general. Until there are viable alternatives to “traditional university education”, both socially and economically, the university system itself will suffer. Just as many want to be at university. Many don’t. And sadly, neither have a choice.

[As I said, this is “faction”. Fiction inspired by fact. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred.]