Socratic Method to Revolutionize the Education System in Sri Lanka

       According to Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy of Cognitive Psychology, it is believed that man’s action is a product of his reasoning or thinking; and if one wants to bring about a desired change in one’s action, then one should alter his / her way of thinking or process of reasoning. Applying the same logic here, it is my opinion that if we want a revolution in the prevailing education system in Sri Lanka, we should revolutionize it from the scratch, i.e., from the grass root level. This is possible only through seeing a change in ideology that brings a particular system in to execution and existence. This is to say that the existing Guru-Kula system which is centred around the master, and promotes route-learning should be given a break, and a Maieutic Method or Dialogical Model proposed by Socrates which is centred around the students as resource persons, and promotes participation and self-discovery should be given a rise.

Focusing on the higher education in Sri Lanka, this does not seem to be beyond the realm of achievable reality. As many of the colleges and universities are autonomous or semi-autonomous, they have a greater opportunity and authority to set syllabi, curriculums, and evaluations that would enable the wisdom-seekers to both discover and evaluate their wisdom inbuilt within themselves. Instead of narrowing down the classroom lectures to mere black-board teaching, or teaching confined to a particular text which is evaluated at the end of each pre-designated time period, the topics can be explored, debated, discussed, analyzed, and evaluated at each student’s potentiality and interest, along with his or her wisdom and capability either ascribed by birth, or acquired through formal and informal education and experience over the years. This indeed demands for a revolutionized and radical form of examination system that would weigh up these differentiated and differently-talented individualities of different intensity and degree. Thus, the basic question seems to be, is such a change in our education system possible without will? Will, at least to experiment something new? Where there is will, there is way!

Thus, if such ‘Sculpturing Method’ of education, proposed by Socrates, proves to help statistically satisfactory proportion of wisdom-seekers in higher education in Sri Lanka, in moulding their lives, and rediscovering their hidden and unnoticed wisdom, then there can be no debate that tries to prove that the Guru-Kula system of education in Sri Lanka is still relevant and indeed timeless.