A dirty political war

Tuesday 13th January, 2026

What began as a debate on the government’s education reforms has descended into a dirty political war, with the propaganda brigades of both the JVP/NPP and the Opposition carrying out vilification campaigns against the key figures in the rival camps. Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, who is also the Minister of Education, has become a victim of a savage character assassination campaign, which no reasonable person will hesitate to condemn unreservedly. Shame on those who have stooped so low as to carry out personal attacks on her!

What has led to the current dispute in the education sector is basically the government’s intransigence. While claiming to be willing to consider dissenting views, it is all out to shove its reform package down the throats of other key stakeholders who unfortunately want the baby also thrown out with the bathwater, so to speak. A prerequisite for resolving the current conflict, which has the potential to cripple the education sector, is for both warring parties to soften their stands and negotiate.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is scheduled to meet the representatives of the trade unions representing teachers and principals shortly, we are told. One can only hope that two sides will move towards a rapprochement, which is the need of the hour.

The government ought to stop cherishing the delusion that its mandate is carte blanche for it to do as it pleases with no heed for dissent. It is only wishful thinking that the government will be able to ensure the implementation of its education reforms without the fullest cooperation of the frontline stakeholders—school teachers and principals.

Even the staunchest opponents of the education reforms at issue agree that the education system has to be reformed. What they are opposing tooth and nail is the manner in which the government has set about the task of introducing education reforms and its attempts to impose a fait accompli on other key stakeholders. The Opposition is not without a political agenda where its campaign against the education reforms is concerned; it will go to any extent to gain political mileage.

The government has erred by compressing the process of formulating education reforms into a year or so and proceeding at a pell-mell pace to implement them. Teachers’ and principals’ trade unions are of the view that some modules were prepared in just three months.

By rushing to reform the education sector, the government has provided the Opposition with a fresh rallying point and the latter is making the most of it. Various associations have sprung up overnight purportedly to ‘save free education’, and some Opposition politicians are planning to launch fasts against the education reforms.

A collective of Opposition parties held a protest in Matugama, the other day, claiming to safeguard free education. A group of NPP supporters staged a demonstration in the same township against the malicious propaganda attacks on Prime Minister Amarasuriya. They vehemently condemned the Opposition for insulting women. Their message must have struck a responsive chord with the public regardless what the Opposition politicians and their propaganda hitmen may say about them. Worryingly, the female JVP/NPP supporters have remained silent on scurrilous attacks the pro-government propagandists carry out on women in the Opposition; they have launched a vilification campaign against a young woman who spoke at a joint Opposition rally at Nugegoda recently. Politicians and propagandists in both the government and the Opposition must do unto others as they would have others do unto them.

Since all stakeholders agree that the education system needs reform, the government should put its controversial reform package on hold immediately and invite teachers, principals, the Opposition and others to a serious discussion.

The government would do well to refrain from crossing the Rubicon and be flexible enough to listen to the other stakeholders and make a course correction. It is hoped that the focus of the talks to be held between the government and the opponents of the education reforms will be on how to retain the baby while throwing away the bathwater.

 

 

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