-By Eng. Sooriasegaram
(Lanka-e-News -06.Nov.2025, 3.10 PM) The NPP/JVP government has quite rightly prioritized education, preschool education in particular, to tap the hidden creative and intellectual potential of our children and youth in order to create a healthy, harmonious, egalitarian, happy and prosperous Sri Lanka. This is something no party in power since independence paid attention to. No doubt they created our free education system, which was commendable, but since then they only paid lip service to improving the quality of education and making it accessible and equitable to all children.
Our Prime Minister and Education Minister has announced her policy on pre-school education and the government’s proposed school educational reforms to be implemented through a careful and calculated stage by stage approach to minimize disruptions and increase efficiency, prioritizing Grade 1 and Grade 6 in the first stage.
In this article, I wish to mainly highlight the dramatic increase in the creative and intellectual potential, which can be achieved through the proposed provision of a world class preschool education with a common syllabus/program for preschool children right across Sri Lanka. Under this program the first batch of 19, 000 preschool teachers from all 25 districts will be trained under a common syllabus.
Every child in the world, irrespective of its race, colour, gender, religion, culture and the country of birth, is born with approximately one billion brain cells, known as neurons. These neurons are of two kinds. One neuron of one kind must join or hook with one neuron of the other kind in order for the neurons to activate the brain. This is what contributes to brain power and capacity. In order for this process to take place the child between the ages 1 to 5 years, must be given the most conducive environment. This environment consists of many things such as:
The child must attend a well-organized and well-equipped preschool guided by a professionally qualified preschool teacher. The emphasis shall be learning through play only.
The child must be showered with love, tender care and compassion at all times
They should never be allowed to starve or suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Healthy and nutritious food must be given to support their physical and mental development. This is why the current government gives priority to eradicate poverty in Sri Lanka. Refer to our President’s speeches
Not be subjected to stressful situations. Parents must always watch their children so that they can rescue them from harm and danger
Never subject them to corporal punishment, physical or mental torture
Never expose them to violence or violent situations including crime scenes in films
Never allow them to be in distress
Ensure that all their physical, mental and recreations are fulfilled.
Spend a lot of time playing with them, talking and engaging with them, encourage their inquisitiveness and thirst for adventure with the outside world
Provide safe play areas, plenty of toys and play with them. Children in this age range only learn through play and social interactions.
Provide a safe environment for children to learn through play alone and in groups
Allow them to explore nature, the wonders of sky, planets and stars, forests, mountains, ocean, rivers, domestic and farm animals, wild life, birds, fish and other forms of life. They love adventure in a safe environment. Parents must ensure their safety at all times.
Their inquisitiveness and appetite for exploration and knowledge are unlimited and that is why they keep on asking questions endlessly. Parents must spend time and effort to answer their questions patiently and convincingly.
Parents must also be given the necessary knowledge and experience by the preschool teacher through regular meetings with parents. Parents are ignorant of upbringing children. This is essential because children only spend 4 hours each week day with children whereas they spend 20 hours or more each day with parents.
The brain development of a person is illustrated in the graph shown below. Brain development in percentage from 0% to 100% is represented in the vertical axis of the graph. The horizontal axis represents the age from 0 years to 100 years.
The bottom graph OAB indicates the lowest brain development of a person with no preschool experience. The area OABQ represents the intellectual production of a person in this category over 100 years.
The graph -01 at here OCD indicates the highest brain development of a person with the best possible preschool experience. The area OCDB represents the intellectual production of a person in this category over 100 years.
Similarly, 7 intermediate categories are shown in this graph. The information in this graph is extracted and processed through careful calculations and tabulated below for ease of understanding. Further calculations are done to make important and far-reaching conclusions. (graph 02)
Maximum intellectual production possible by our 21 million citizens in Sri Lanka is 194, 250 million units (this will occur only with the best possible preschool experience)
Minimum intellectual production of only 30, 450 million units is possible without preschool experience by our 21 million citizens in Sri Lanka.
Loss in intellectual production due to no preschool experience is 163, 800 million units. This represents a loss in intellectual production of 84.32%. This is a very sad state of affairs indeed. Sri Lanka cannot afford this tragedy.
Without promoting intellectual production, in a knowledge based world, we cannot govern our country efficiently, we cannot be inventive, innovative and creative, cannot manage our resources efficiently, cannot produce our food needs and other necessities, cannot create a beautiful built environment, cannot produce renewable energy, cannot create a modern pollution free and environmentally friendly integrated transport system, cannot build a strong economy, cannot provide best quality medical care, cannot provide decent housing for everybody, cannot eradicate poverty, cannot unify our country, cannot create an inclusive society, cannot stand up to the challenges we face today and cannot create a happy, prosperous and peaceful country. This has been the history of our country so far. Under the present people friendly government, for the first time in our history, we have a chance to change this situation.
- Eng. Sooriasegaram
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by (2025-11-06 09:40:23)
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