In the annals of governance, few practices are as corrosive as the predilection to manufacture crises, then feign investigation when they explode in public view. The National People’s Power (NPP) Government, which ascended to power on a clarion call for transparency and accountability, has increasingly distinguished itself not by the reforms it delivers but by the pitfalls it creates, only to respond with investigations, platitudes, and the ritual sacrifice of a convenient official while the architects of policy slip unscathed. It is in this backdrop that one is compelled to view the unfolding controversy over the Grade 6 curriculum, which at first glance does not appear to be the isolated mishap it is supposed to be, but a revealing chapter in a pattern of governance that prizes political survival over ethical leadership.
When the Grade 6 English module controversy broke into the national consciousness, the initial responses from the corridors of power were striking not for their clarity but for their evasiveness. Rather than owning the misstep, the Government distanced itself, called in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), and found a fall guy in National Institute of Education Director General Prof. Manjula Vithanapathirana, who was quietly ushered out of office.
This ritual of deflection is now a familiar occurrence: when policy errors become political liabilities, an official is blamed, an investigation announced, and the ruling party retreats, its hands ostensibly clean. It is all about optics: an exercise in managing perception, not in grappling with systemic failure.
At its core, the Grade 6 scandal revolves around printed English learning modules containing inappropriate content and directing young students to an external web link featuring material society in general finds deeply objectionable. The Ministry of Education, quick to label the episode a conspiracy to discredit its reform agenda, has spent more effort in deflection than in explanation. The CID, an all-too-familiar device in the NPP’s political playbook that offers the trappings of inquiry without the promise of clarity, has predictably been roped in.
Consider the optics of this pattern. When things go wrong in NPP-run ministries or State organs, the reflex is not to pause, explain, and reform. It is to find a fall guy, punish the bureaucrat, protect the politician, and shift the narrative.
This manoeuvre has been internalised as standard operating procedure, and the Grade 6 issue is simply the latest exhibit in a growing portfolio of political diversion tactics.
When a disgraced former Speaker was involved in a serious motor accident that left a young mother and infant badly injured, responsibility somehow found its way to a mechanic. When a ruling party Local Government representative was caught cultivating cannabis illegally, it was the Police officer who led the raid who came under scrutiny. When journalists exposed the importation of allegedly substandard medicine, the State’s instinct was not to investigate procurement failures, but to question the motives of the media. In each case, the pattern is unmistakable: blame travels downwards, never upwards. Accountability is imposed on the expendable, never on the powerful.
The financial dimension of the Grade 6 scandal only deepens concerns. By the ministry’s own admission, approximately Rs. 60 million was spent printing 350,000 copies of the English modules. These are now awaiting surgical removal of the offending pages before redistribution. In a country where public servants are told to tighten belts and social spending is justified only with difficulty, such waste borders on the obscene. Yet once again, no clear answer has been offered as to who will bear responsibility for this loss to the public purse. The State absorbs the cost; the leadership absorbs nothing.
Ironically, this very culture of selective accountability is among the strongest deterrents to foreign investment and international confidence. Investors and development partners do not merely look at growth figures or reform blueprints, they look at governance culture. A system where investigations disappear, responsibility is avoided, and institutions are instrumentalised sends the clear signal that risk is political, and not merely economic. No amount of reform branding can compensate for that reality.
What makes the Grade 6 episode particularly consequential is that it unfolds within the education sector, a domain that touches nearly every family in the country and shapes the nation’s future long before electoral cycles come into play. Education reform requires trust, consultation, and legitimacy. Yet the NPP’s approach has been marked by opacity and haste.
When controversy erupts, the Government’s instinct is not to engage openly with critics, but to suspect sabotage. This defensive posture betrays the deeper insecurity of a governing elite that confuses dissent with conspiracy and accountability with hostility. It also reveals a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the NPP project, a movement that rose to prominence by challenging entrenched power, struggling to tolerate its own scrutiny.
The NPP Government has shown that when faced with failure, it will do what Sri Lankan governments do: deflect, delay, and deflate responsibility. It will preach transparency while practising opacity, demand accountability while evading it, and speak of systems while protecting individuals who sit at the apex of those systems. Perhaps most damagingly, it has demonstrated a willingness to treat public officials as disposable buffers – sacrificed at the altar of political expediency to preserve the illusion of clean governance.
The tragedy is that Sri Lanka genuinely needs deep, credible reform, particularly in education. Such reform cannot be sustained on slogans alone. It requires a political culture willing to accept responsibility at the highest levels, even when it is inconvenient. Until the NPP demonstrates that it is prepared to hold itself to the same standards it demanded of others, every investigation it announces will ring hollow, and every reform it proposes will be met with growing scepticism.
Worse yet, it sends a chilling message through the ranks of the State sector that in times of trouble, do not expect your political masters to defend you; expect to be abandoned or, worse still, be thrown under the bus. What is clear is that the regime, rather than rooting for accountability, is opting for scapegoating. The two are often confused, but they are fundamentally different. Accountability attends to root causes, assigns responsibility where it truly lies, and subjects decision-making processes to public scrutiny. Scapegoating substitutes a symbol for substance, offering the appearance of action while preserving the insiders who shaped the choices in question.
This state of affairs is not only a failure of leadership, but more a strategic miscalculation. A society that is becoming increasingly sceptical of institutional integrity is not mollified by ritual investigations or symbolic resignations. Public trust is cumulative; it is built through consistent honesty, shared accountability, and participatory decision-making. When leaders repeatedly choose expediency over candour, the usual outcome is that the social contract is put under undue pressure.
Moreover, while the Government may succeed in deflecting immediate political fallout, it risks long-term reputational damage, particularly at a moment when Sri Lanka most needs confidence from citizens, investors, and international partners alike. Foreign assistance and investment are not won by governments that punish transparency and celebrate evasion. They are won by those who demonstrate predictable, accountable, and principled governance.
The Grade 6 curriculum scandal, therefore, is far more than a textbook controversy. It is a litmus test for the NPP’s claim to a new beginning. What the test has exposed thus, is a leadership that, when confronted with adversity, defaults to denial and defensiveness rather than reflection and responsibility. It reveals a Government that is quick to invoke criminal investigation as smoke and mirrors, but slow to engage substantively with the public it serves.
If the NPP truly values accountability and if it genuinely intends to break with the politics of the past, it must do more than push officials under the bus and hope the storm passes. It must answer the substantive questions that the public and the education sector are asking. It must demonstrate that accountability is not a placeholder for crisis management, but a foundational principle of governance.
Sri Lanka’s next generation deserves better than a curricular controversy defined by confusion, evasion, and political expediency. The country’s teachers deserve better than a policy process that sidelines professional input and its citizens deserve a government that treats transparency not as a slogan, but as a practice.
If the NPP fails to rise to this challenge, it will confirm what many Sri Lankans already suspect: that the promise of ‘system change’ was simply an election gimmick to fool the public. The real lesson of the Grade 6 scandal is not about curriculum content at all, but about the fragility of accountability in a political culture that fears responsibility more than it fears failure.
Source: The Sunday Morning
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
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