A tribute is always better to be written when a person is alive so that he/she may also read about what is being written about him/her. This piece is written to share the story of Parliamentarian Wimalaweera Dissanayake. While there may be arguments and disagreements concerning him as a politician, this is written with an apolitical view to highlight what he has achieved through education. 

It is a common perception that politicians are usually uneducated and people who come to Parliament without having much education. Dissanayake is an exception to this. While there are many educated people serving as MPs, his story is very different from most of them. It would be shocking to most if one was to know of the fact that Dissanayake has only studied up to Grade Six. Even in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the threshold was passing Grade Eight as it was deemed the most basic of requirements as far as school education was concerned. Now, after only studying up to Grade Six, he went on to earn a Bachelor’s Honours Degree in Arts from the Colombo University, the number one ranked University in Sri Lanka. He did not stop from there and went on to earn a Master of Science Degree in Education from the Peradeniya University, another prestigious University with its own tradition. If you have read the article up to now, you would wonder how this was possible. This is the part which all should be aware of. After dropping out from school at Grade Six, Dissanayake taught himself through reading, and at this, he was a greedy reader, basically reading everything that he could find. He knew the importance of education as an individual who was deprived of it at such a tender age. After working several odd jobs, he decided to sit for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level Examination without a formal education obtained through a school and passed the Examination with sufficient grades to sit for the GCE Advanced Level (A/L) Examination apart from failing the subject of mathematics which he passed at the next attempt with a ‘Credit’ pass. This was no small feat since many find it extremely difficult to pass the subject even at the third and fourth attempt. Having obtained such an educational milestone, he still knew the importance of further education and decided to go one step further and sit for the GCE A/L Examination, one of the most competitive Examinations in the country, paving the way for the best of the best in the country to enter a Government university based on the results of the Examination. Again, without a formal education obtained from a school, and with a minimum of resources being made available, he took up the challenge and successfully passed the Examination with flying colours. As subjects, he selected Sinhala, Buddhist Civilisation, Economics and Political Science and obtained two B passes, one C pass and one S pass which enabled him to enter the Colombo University’s Arts Faculty. At the University, he was able to obtain an Honours Degree in Arts after entering University at the age of 28. This achievement itself was something monumental and if he decided to end his education there, it would have still been a Cinderella story. However, he took another step forward and completed a Master of Science Degree in Education from the Peradeniya University. This is something real and one may not have read something like this even in a fairytale. 

Still, this is a true story which forms the basis for the novel ‘Akalata Aa Iskole’. This is a testament to where Sri Lanka has come since its Independence and what we have achieved in the past 76 years for those who question what has happened to our country. Dissanayake’s story tells us that there is still plenty of hope left for those who are ready to put in the hard yards and believe in education as the true inspiration that gives you wings. His story also takes away the myths that society commonly holds about climbing the educational ladder. It is also to be said that one is never to judge a book by its cover. Finally, it was ironic that Dissanayake who left school at Grade Six, came back to school as a teacher in political science at the D.S. Senanayake College, Ampara, to teach GCE A/L students, a class which he himself never sat in. 

(The writer is an attorney and Lecturer at the Colombo University’s Law Faculty’s Public and International Law Department)

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication