The Special Report

26th March 2000

Re-writing history

Text book tug-o'-war causes further turmoil

By Shelani de Silva

History is written largely by the victors. So says an old adage. In a multi-ethnic country where history and language have become sensitive subjects with each community interpreting events in its own perspective and for its own interest, eruption of controversies is nothing unexpected.

In this light, the ongoing controversies over omissions of certain historical events in Sinhala text books and inclusion of Sinhala words in Tamil textbooks have created a big debate on history and the education system.

The Sunday Times this week attempts to look at various aspects of the controversies over the Grade Seven and Grade 10 social studies text book in Tamil and the Grade nine Sinhala text book.

While pro-Sinhala Groups are accusing the Education Ministry of omitting three important episodes in the history of Sri Lanka, a Tamil teachers's union is accusing it of distorting the language and committing grammatical mistakes when translating the Sinhala text into Tamil.

The National Institute of Education (NIE) and the Educational Publications Department (EPD) blame each other for the crisis.

To prepare the manuscript, the EPD was assisted by the NIE with Tamil and Muslim officials doing the translations from Sinhala to Tamil. Officials now acknowledge that problems could crop up when officers who are not well versed with the subject handle translations.

This is clearly seen in several chapters in the Tamil translation of the Grade 7 and Grade 10 Social Studies book issued this year. The Sinhala word 'Pokuna' (pond) appears as it is in the Tamil text book though 'Kulam' is the Tamil translation of it. Tamil teachers point out another glaring error. The Sinhala work 'mokakda' — meaning 'what' — appears in the Tamil text as it is.

Education officers who now describe these as technical errors, say proper proof reading had not been done before the manuscript went to print.

The EPD prints some 28 million books annually. When undertaking such a gigantic task, it is expected that problems could arise, EPD commissioner E. W. Abeynayake said.

But when the government introduced education reforms, many of the text books required modifications and printing of new books at enormous costs. The World Bank stepped in with funds to improve the quality of the book in keeping with education reforms aimed at achieving highest education standards that would suit Sri Lanka's needs. The World Bank funds helped EPD to print the books in colour using quality newsprint.

Mr. Abeynayake sees the problem in the Tamil text books as a confusion over dialect.

"The Jaffna Tamils speak a dialect which is different from those spoken by the people on the Plantations. This has led to the confusion," he said.

Mr. Abeynayake said the EPD was appointing committees to study what he termed technical problems before the manuscript went to print. "The technical errors occurred even last year. It is a big problem but we cannot do anything this year but next year with the committee for each subject this will be solved," he said.

These committees consisting of Tamil teachers who are converse with the subject matter will be initially for four subject — Tamil, Hinduism, Social Studies and Science.

As a precaution the EPD has decided to give the contract of writing Tamil textbooks to experts hired from outside to avoid such errors. But will the government withdraw the Tamil text books?

Mr. Abeynayake said he knew no such moves.

"We spent a large sum on the books. So it is unlikely, the books would be withdraws. But we can assure such problems will not occur again," the EPD chief said.

The NIE has a different story. It claims that the bulk of the technical errors are made by the printing press and the private type setters.

NIE Deputy Director General S D L Amaragunasekera told The Sunday Times that often the type setters made mistakes when effecting the corrections marked by proof readers.

Commenting on the allegations about distorting history, EPD chief Abeynayake said history was written as it was and no one could change it.

"We can't say who came first to the country, we include events that are supported by evidence. There is no distortion of history," he said.

Meanwhile Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union has accused the Government of not only creating several technical errors but also of practising discriminatory policies. The union leaders will meet Minister Richard Pathirana on April 10 to discuss the matter. Union Secretary Mr. Mahasivam told The Sunday Times that they had asked schools not to use the text books in question.

"The translation is very poor. There are factual errors in the textbook. It appears the text books had been handled by incompetent people. How can the teachers teach the children? We ourselves are ashamed of such incomplete work," he said.

Mr. Mahasivam charged that the section dealing with religions of Sri Lanka was dominated by Buddhism with only a few pages for other religions.

"It is discrimination. The children have a right to learn about all religions. In one page it has a reference to 'our Buddhist culture,' ignoring the fact that the Tamil students are of differnet culture. We have to teach them their customs and religion as well," Mr. Mahasivam said.

He claimed that in the last year's text books too errors were pointed out and the matter was taken up with the government authorities. A Presidential Advisory Editorial Board was appointed to rectify the matter, but nothing happened, he said.

"Howevermuch we point out the mistakes, it seems the Government is not interested in correcting the error. This we understand is mainly because of the enormous cost involved in such an exercise. A translator is paid Rs. 200 a page while Rs. 25 is paid to a proof reader who goes through the text thrice," he said.

Mr. Mahasivam said the union was calling on the Government to rewrite and reprint the textbooks, as the books as they were would do serious harm to the future generation.

He also said the union would also take up the matter of distorting history in the textbook with Minister Pathirana.

"The textbook claims that Vijaya was the first to come to Sri Lanka, but there is historical evidence to prove that people lived here even before that," he said.

Views of Sinhala groups

The Sunday Times spoke to Sinhala groups which are protesting against any changes in the Tamil text books. Here are their views:

The secretary of the The National Joint Committee, Piyasena Dissanayake:

According to media reports, the Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union has refused to use the Social Studies textbook on the basis that inproportionate number of pages have been allocated for the Sinhala culture and history. The Tamil teachers also claim that there were people in Sri Lanka before the arrival of Wijeya.

We cannot speak about the civilisation without referring to Sinhala Buddhist culture. The advent of civilisation was recorded in the Mahavansa and accepted by well-known historians here and abroad. There is no question about the credibility of Mahavansa as it has even helped Indian historians to fill in some gaps.

The Tamil teachers must understand that history cannot be changed to suit their political needs.

MEP Leader Dinesh Gunewardane"

Today we are faced with a sad situation. Three important sections of our history has not been included in the Social Studies textbook. Information on Anagarika Dharmapala, Tibetan monk Ven. S. Mahinda and a series of poems on Sri Pada by Mahagamasekera has been omitted. They were not politicians. They are part of our history.

It is sad that people who have no cultural aspirations are involved in making the textbook. The MEP will be collecting signatures from the public and academics for a petition to be handed over to the President.

Tamil teachers should know that they cannot rewrite history to suit a person or community."

The National Movement Agents Terrorism:

Last year too the same teachers union protested over the text book issue. This reveals their racist colours. They claimed that the year 6 Social Studies book had omitted that fact that Tamils were in Sri Lanka before the coming of Vijaya. They condemned the book, while the banned the book in the North and East and introduced a new book on Tamil history.

Last month the Union met ministry officials and we understand the ministry officials had agreed to make a few changes in the text book. We have made it clear that if they bow down and change the contents, the NMAT would organise an islandwide protest campaign.

Teachers tackle errors

By S.S. Selvanayagam and Faraza Farook

With educational authorities offering no apology or indicating that the controversial text books will be either withdrawn or amended, principals and teachers has begun finding their own solution to the problem.

Interviews with school authorities revealed that some teachers were ignorant of the mistakes while others corrected the mistakes during lessons.

It was initially told that mistakes were mainly in the Grade 7 and Grade 10 social studies and history books, but investigations showed that mathematics, religion and language books also had errors.

Wesley College Acting Vice Principal Rev. Shehan Fernando said teachers had been advised by the school to skip lessons that contained errors.

A Grade 2 teacher at Ramanathan Hindu Ladies College said the errors in the Year Two text books had pushed teachers into a dilemma with students learning something from the book and teachers teaching something else.

"The Year Two text books contain wrong or incomplete pictures. For instance, the book depicts 'Siva Sinnam' in the Hindu religion as just a statue whereas it should have been a person with 'vibuthi' (holy ash) and sandalwood."

At Muslim Ladies College, teachers have been asked to study their subject books and report back to the principal. The school is planning to put the findings of the teachers to the Academic Officers Board.

Kotahena Vivekananda Tamil Maha Vidyalaya Principal T. Santhosh said they were concerned about the errors and had reported it to the Education Ministry.Adding to the confusion is the distribution of different sets of books for the same grade.

At Lindsay Balika Maha Vidyalaya in Colombo 3, students have received two different types of books leaving them confused. This happened when the school informed the authorities that they wanted more books. But the books they received were different from what they got. Teachers have been instructed to go through both books and use their discretion when they teach.

We also found that some school authorities were unaware of the controversy. The principal of Buddhist Girls School, Mt. Lavinia said she had not received any complaints from teachers though Buddhist groups had objected to certain omissions in the history text book.

A glance at the books

Going through the pages of the Tamil text books in question a Sunday Times team spotted several errors.

Page five of the Social Studies and History book for Grade 10 had an anomaly in a diagram.

On page 8, the building of the Parakramabahu Samudraya tank had been erroneously attributed to King Vijayabahu.

A map on page 29 had 'Siam', the ancient name for Thailand marked in two places.

In the Grade 7 book, the Asia map on page 13 had Nepal marked in the wrong place. On page 28, Sethiyagiri replaced Vadiyagiri, the ancient name for Mihintale. On the same map, Thampannawa, which is close to Mannar, was marked away from its right place.

In addition to these errors, terms and objects peculiar to Sinhala culture have been used, though Tamil students are more familiar with terms and objects found in Tamil culture.

For instance, in the Grade 7 Social Studies text book coconut tree symbolises life though Tamils in the north believe that it should have been palmyrah tree.

Unit 10 dealing with sound has illustrated the 'Raban' instead of instruments such as mirthangam or maththalam which have special place in Tamil culture.

Inside the glass house

Editorial/ Opinion Contents