Finding alternative approach in limited civil society space –   An alternative progress report on achieving SDGs   

Government of Sri Lanka agreed to present a volunteer review on the progress the country have made with regard to achieving overall SDGs to the high level political forum.  The Ministry of sustainable development and wildlife – the focal point to achieve SDGs in Sri Lanka coordinated the reviewing process with the other stake holders.

The ministry handed over the reviewing process to Institute of policy studies (IPS) which is a government institution basically involved in policy forming and research. In the meantime ministry of SDG invited most of the government department agencies for the consultation meetings on implementation of SDGs.

The available space for civil society to involve in policy formation and reforms is comparatively low In Sri Lanka.  As CED has been developed strong contacts with the ministry, the secretary of the ministry invited CED to participate in the Voluntary National Review (VNR). However most of the CBO and NGOs not invited for these consultation sessions.  Subsequently Civil society organizations jointly requested the ministry to involve them in this process. Although they were invited at the final stages of the SDG consolations meetings, the civil society representatives felt that their voices are not being properly heard.

In this situation a group of civil society organization decided to form a platform to initiate dialog on developing an alternative mechanism for review implementing of SDG in Sri Lanka. CED Sri Lanka is one of the founder members of civil society platform. SDG civil society platform conducted several discussion and meetings to strengthen the voice of the civil society in order to identify the gaps and areas need to be focused to enhance the processes. The intention of this exercise was to obtain the maximum benefit for the country.

Followed by series of meeting SDG stakeholder platform decided to prepare a peoples review report on SDGs. Reviewing the progress of achieving SDG were assigned to these organization according to the agendas of the organizations and their expertise in the particular field. Consequently CED was tasked to review and compile a report on SDG4 education.   Some of the consultations took place in the provincial level and  CED member organizations facilitated these meeting that held in their locations. In these consultation meetings CED member organizations highlighted the provincial issues that has to be addressed in ensuring quality education.  This team work provided good opportunity to CED to develop more contacts with likeminded organizations.

Although few members were not able to fulfill the assigned task adequately the core group members took the responsibility of gathering information and compiling the Voluntary peoples review report. This report was presented at the High Level Political Forum in New-york 2018.

In order to ensure quality education for all, the state also developed the infrastructure required to make free education accessible to all. The process created a network of state run schools and an administrative structure that managed them.

Each year Government allocates considerable portion of its financial resources on education. This allocation has been increased continuously through the past decades.  Although the state adopted several measures to ensure a uniform standard among all schools, some qualitative disparities are among the schools are clearly perceptible.  Parents make every effort to enroll their children which has been recognized as national/ popular schools. As a result of that various additional expenses including traveling and other logistics involved in providing education has been dramatically increased.  In addition exam oriented education system created an enormous competition among the students.  In this environment both children and parents have paid more attention to equip their children with more knowledge through extra (tuition) classes.  Increasing the cost on education certainly make a negative impact specially on the children who are coming from poor and middle income groups. These situations will be an obstacle to achieve SDG 4 “Ensure quality and equitable education opportunities for all”.

Availability of scientific data on cost of education is a vital factor to lobby the government and authorities to take the necessary measures to address these issues. However, detailed analysis on the expenditure incurred to the families are not adequately available. To fill the gap CED Sri Lanka planned to conduct a study to identify the direct and indirect costs that has to be abide by the parents on general education.

Objectives of the Survey

To identify the direct and indirect cost incurred on providing school education to the Children

To calculate an average expenditure on school education by different socio economic groups

To compare the government financial allocation per each child, with the cost bear by individual family unit.

CED has already completed the data gathering and in the process of data analyzing. CED expects to publish the report in 2019 March.

CED conducted an awareness raising programme for the disable group in June 2018. This programme was held in Anuradhapura and a total number of 40 participants who are differently abled participated to this awareness  programme.  This programme was organized by Sahana Association for disabled a member organization of CED. In this training programme  Special attention was paid to introduce and make them understand about the special arrangement provided under SDG framework to ensure rights of the disabled people.

According to the participants, most of the instances they were invited to participate for the health and livelihood sector programmes . However, this is the first time that they were invited participate in a development context development approaches.

In order to better understanding  same training was conducted in two days  One day for the blind people and the other day for the deaf and people with other disabilities.

Awareness raising on  importance of Life long education and available opportunities in Sri Lanka

Most of the people think that once they complete the formal education they have completed their education. However,  In this rapidly changing world in order to function effectively in day-to-day life we need to learn new things to live a fruitful life. In this aspect learning is a continuous process.  Life-long learning  is also connected to employability, passions and life satisfaction. In addition life-long learning help to build  social awareness  and relationships. This is critical not only to the health of individual relationships, but also the health of society as we in the era that need to develop peaceful society in order to enjoy the benefit of the development to the entire society.

To realize SDG4 the contribution of the other different stakeholders who are involved in education sector are also important. However inter connection of the different actors and  their knowledge on significance of their contribution in lifelong learning is not adequate. This could be considered as an obstacle in realizing SDG4

Therefore to bridge  the gap CED has planned to compile a resource pack to emphasize the importance of lifelong learning. This resource would consist of concept and theories of the lifelong learning and it will also guide the education actors the necessary actions that to be taken by them in order to promote lifelong learning. It will also serve as an advocacy tool for civil society actors.

In addition  CED conducted two consultation workshops to obtain the deferent view points of the general community and validate the contents of the draft resource pack. These sessions were held in July and November 2018 in Colombo

A total number of 40 representing member organizations participated for these sessions Most of the participants are women who are involved in promoting adults education in community level. CED expect to publish the resource pack in January 2019

Providing quality preschool is an important factor in achieving SDG 4 – Ensuring quality education and life-long learning opportunity for all. Coalition for Educational Development conducted 2 days training program on ELDS (Early Learning Development Standards) for selected pre-School teachers. These teachers were nominated by CED member organization who involved in ECCD sector. Early childhood development which commences at conception and continues up to five years is the most crucial developmental phase of life. To develop a fully-fledged adult life, development in various domains needs to be stimulated during this period. Therefore it is important to develop and guide the child utilizing the precise methods and approaches.

In Sri Lanka, most of the preschools are operated by the private sector actors and some of them are operated by local governance authorities. Although children secretariat has introduced ELDS standards recently, It is observed that these standards are not adequately followed by the most of preschools.  One of the main reasons for this situation is lack of training opportunities for the pre-school teachers especially in the remote areas.   Objective of this awareness program is to improve the understanding of early learning development standers for pre-school teachers. This program was held on 07^th and 8^th of April in Colombo. Dr. Indrani Thalagala, former head of the ECCD, Department of Open University Sri Lanka and Asoka Pandithasekara Former primary education director- Ministry of Education facilitated the training program. This event provided a good opportunity to interact with senior academics and clarify their issues problems related to field.   A total number of 30 pre-school teachers representing 20 districts participated to this event. CED expect that these  trainees will be actively involved in sharing the knowledge with their colleagues.

The Annual General Meeting of the Coalition for Educational Development was held on Sunday 25^th of March 2017 at the Ecumenical Institute for Study & Dialogue in Colombo with the participation of the 49 Member Organizations who involved in the education sector at provincial and local level in Sri Lanka. Formalities of the Annual General Meeting were started after lighting traditional oil lamp by the Executive committee members of Coalition for Educational Development and other guest. Chairman, Mr. K.D Peiris welcomed the gathering and he presented the Annual report, highlighting the works completed during the year. It was followed by the reading of the minutes of the last AGM by the Secretary, Mr. W.W. Wijewantha Wellala as well as the treasurer, Mr. Chaminda Piyasekara presented the finance report of the last year.

The second session of the day was allocated to the appointing of new executive committee for the year 2018/ 2020 and the election was successfully held with the help of PAFFREL (People’s action for Free and Fair Election. Mr. Chandana Bandara was appointed as a new chairman and Mr. W.W. wellala and Mr. Chaminda Piyasekara will continue in their current role as the general secretary and the treasurer. The AGM came to a conclusion with vote of thanks given by the general Secretary Mr. W. W Wellala. He thanks all those who attended the AGM and congratulated for the newly appointed executive committee for the 2018/ 2020. It was the very successful Annual General Meeting and we look forward support and participation in the coming year at our all events and project.