Editorial

The forthcoming presidential election seems to have given the wrong message to trade unions and their handlers that it is an opportune time to ‘strike’.

The JVP’s presidential candidate admitted to this newspaper that his party was masterminding the string of strikes unleashed in recent weeks. The railway strike, for instance, prevented poor daily wage earners, the working class, from commuting to the city and getting back home. Clearly realising the backlash it was facing from the public, other frontliners from the party were distancing themselves from the strike action, drawing a distinction between their support for demonstrations as against the strikes.

Strikes in two sectors in particular cannot be supported: one, the health sector, and the other, the education sector. The attitude of most unions, be they in the Electricity Board or in transportation, is to hold the public to ransom to achieve their own ends. Most of them cause inconveniences—some major, some minor—but those in the health and education sectors cause immediate and long-term repercussions.

This week, the Director General of UNESCO, the UN agency responsible for education, was in Sri Lanka to commemorate 75 years of collaboration with the country. She made a moot point on the future of education. In a speech in Colombo, she referred to what she called the ‘AI Revolution’, the advent of Artificial Intelligence in education in the coming years that was going to transform the entire way future generations will be taught. This process might well see a complete change in the classroom we know of today, even the school system and the role of teachers. This could well see the diminishing of the ‘Stalin era’ of the Ceylon Teachers Union and strikes becoming history.

UNESCO’s ‘AI in Education’ hopes to address some of the biggest challenges, including innovative teaching and learning practices. The world, and Sri Lanka included, had a glimpse of this during the COVID-19 period, when schools were shut, teachers stayed at home, and children had to get Wi-Fi or data connection even from the top of a rock for their lessons online.

While AI will bring education to farflung areas in a country where children have to still walk miles to get to school every day, there are fears that inequalities can also widen the technological divide within a country and between countries.

Teachers will need to reflect on their own future as educators in a future, probably sans trade unions. And generations to come may be without mentors outside their homes to guide them to adult life.

Rather than howling for demands that cannot be met, these union leaders may be better off doing their own studies on how to fit into these automated systems and robotics—the AI revolution that awaits them. The Government and UNESCO must invite education policymakers and trade unionists to the ‘Summit of the Future’ at the UN in New York, where the Global Digital Compact will be adopted and where they can innovate teaching and learning practices in readiness for the opportunities and challenges of this inevitable future.

Hydrographic mapping the need

The joint statement issued after official diplomatic talks between Sri Lanka and the United States of America in Washington last week mentioned that the US discussed this country’s efforts at reconciliation and measures to uphold democracy, further good governance, protect human rights, etc.

One wonders why Sri Lanka did not express its concerns over reconciliation in that country between African Americans and the ‘Rednecks’, measures to uphold democracy, and the continuing gun violence that has cost the many lives of so many school kids and very nearly the life of a presidential candidate at the hands of a 20-year-old last week.

That apart, the talks seem to have gone off well. And one of the interesting takeaways from the dialogue is US support for Sri Lanka’s hydrographic mapping capabilities and training of personnel in the field.

The US offer may not necessarily be altruistic given that the seas around Sri Lanka are highly contested between the US-led alliance and China. There has been renewed interest in these waters in what appears to be a scramble for mineral deposits deep down in the ocean bed. This is in addition to the continuing headache Sri Lanka is facing with the visit of ‘research vessels’ from these major powers, which resulted in a ban until the end of the year on all of them because there was no other solution to the diplomatic pressure applied to Colombo from opposing camps.

The Indian and Western concern is that, under the guise of marine exploration and research, China is conducting mapping of the seabed with a view to military activity in the future, which includes seeking hiding places for its nuclear-powered submarines.

Prioritising the development of Sri Lanka’s maritime capabilities is long overdue. It is engaged in a losing battle with India over the IUU (illegal fishing) issue in the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar due to its lack of political and diplomatic muscle. Emboldened by victory in that arena, India has now lodged an application to the International Seabed Authority to explore for minerals in the seas, for which Sri Lanka had already made a claim through a separate process. China has been ahead in the race to cultivate Sri Lankan maritime agencies with MoUs signed years ago with research agencies and universities.

Against this backdrop, hydrographic data on the sea’s behaviour, resources, and seabed landscape becomes crucial not only for commercial shipping but for minerals exploration and military activities. Getting US help alone may not be judicious due to geopolitical sensitivities, but development and protec-tion of Sri Lanka’s maritime boundaries and capabilities will require the utmost attention in these troubled times where the currents below and above the seas can drag the country away from its declared non-aligned stance.

Enhanced capacity and expertise will enable Sri Lanka to make its own informed, sovereign decisions and assessments with regard to maritime issues, including under the UN’s Law of the Sea, and not be subject to the security paranoia of competing major powers from the East and West.