Neelika Malavige is a Professor at the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Her basic medical degree was from Colombo University and she did her PHD in the University of Oxford, UK.
She worked at Oxford NHS to get trained in allergies during her PHD work, and her research thereafter was mainly concerned with viral immunology - studying viruses and how the immune system responds to viruses, Since getting her PhD in 2008, she has been an academic visitor at the University of Oxford, having, because of that, access to all the computer and library facilities of Oxford University for her research which greatly helps in her ground-breaking work here, as we saw during the recent epidemic.
She spoke to the Atharamadiyawa channel ( https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtwohMDBL8yyZ4A5uz-oyuA) to celebrate the International Day for Women in Science.
Q. Professor Neelika Malavige, you're one of the biggest inspirations right now to all women, all working women, all girls who like to do science, all women especially in our campus because you are one of the leading scientists working at the forefront during the pandemic that we all went through. So, I cannot think of a better person to represent what the idea is in having such An International Day for Women in Science. Because my channel is geared to learning and teaching English, I will get into the subject of how important English is in pursuing these subjects and whether someone in the rural areas who might not be familiar with English should lose hope or what they should do. But I'll come to that later.
I'll start with asking you - When they have a day like this, it's always a signal towards it being out of the ordinary. However, according to the Statistics of the Institute of Policy Studies, even in the science faculties the women outnumber the men. So, Sri Lanka is actually quite advanced in that fact especially during school and the undergraduate level.
But according to that report, things change a bit when it's post graduate level, and when it's engineering and maybe technology subjects. So Professor, as a part of the Medical Faculty of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, how do you explain this kind of difference?
That's a good question and in medical and science faculties we do see an equal proportion of females and males and I believe in certain bachelors, in Science faculties, there are more females than males. This is different to the times when I was in medical school. For instance in Colombo, only around 1/4th of our batch were women.
If you go back 50 years, I think even in it was majority of males in both science and medical faculties. Still in Engineering, Technology and Mathematics, we do see very poor female representation. I think that's because of several reasons as these subjects considered a man's domain. For instance, if you are a civil engineer or mechanical engineer its always men who are shown in television and films.
So we are saying that the ideology that is out there represents women as not being quite capable of those things maybe climbing up a building or something like that I see
Well it’s not about just physical abilities, but I think when it comes to mathematics and physics there's a perception that girls are not as good as boys.
Interesting. Now, although there is an equal representation of men and women at the undergraduate level, at the graduate level, decision making levels or higher posts there are more men. Why do you think that is happening?
Yes, so that's the important question and so the big question is why. I think it's to do with family commitments and childcare commitments that women have. When I actually look at myself, I always thought I could progress because I have a very strong family support from my parents and husband. My parents played a huge role in looking after my kids. So I thought if you don’t have family support then you can’t progress. But having said that, when I did my post-graduate studies in the UK my parents were not around and my husband was very busy too.
However, why I could complete my PhD in three years was because in those countries there is a huge social support system for families. The difference is quality childcare. Those countries realise that it's important to have females in these career positions because they make a huge contribution to the economy. So supporting females in to fulfil their aspirations is not about helping individuals achieving their dreams, but because females make a huge contribution to the economy, by helping females it helps countries to progress economically.
Countries which don't have females contributing to the economy don't progress very well in economy wise, so those all the developed countries (including Asian countries) have a very good childcare support system. When I was doing my PhD, I went with my two and a half year old daughter and she was extremely well looked after she got the best of care. Because she was very happy, I was obviously happy and could focus on my work. However, because of our school system, it’s very difficult for working mums to pick their kids up at the middle of a working day at 1.30 p.m.
So you have to rely on a van or someone else, which might not be safe, the child might be going home to an empty house, which creates so many issues. In other countries you see there are after school care systems and also there are flexible working hours and women are allowed to work part time. Because of these issues it is unfortunate that Sri Lanka is not getting the services of capable women who can contribute so much to the development of a country. We are experiencing a really bad economical situation right now and at least now; the country should plan ways to help women contribute to the economy.
This is such a pity professor, because a sad thing is, it's very often connected to wealth. For instance, like if you don't have domestic help which the majority of us don’t then all that falls upon the mother. It’s the mother who normally should give up whatever she's doing and should be there cook etc… Therefore, without a support system in institutions, many women actually may not have the choice of following a career. Am I right in saying that?
Absolutely so when we talk about institutions it's not just a government. I think it is important that institutions have good childcare facilities within the institution for women who want to have that option and in other countries it has changed how all these institutions or companies perform. This very much increases the efficiency and the productivity of all these institutions.
Are there anyways that women can help each other?
Of course. In many other countries there are child-carers, and these individuals are not nannies, or you know like the kusiyama we talk about in Sri Lanka. So let's say you have a woman with just one child and if that person feels that they can look after another child very easy they can offer the services to women who needs such services. If there is a person who is staying at home because maybe they don't want to work, then they can actually help somebody by looking after their kid (picking up from school, giving meals until the parent picks up) and also earning something at the same time.
I can see the problems that can also lead to like you know sexual abuse and all that so very supervised system will have to come. Another thing about being a woman is apart from this, they will have to deal with sense of guilt that committing yourself to a very serious profession is to be like a bad mother. Many women might have to overcome that as well. The main reason I'm pointing this out is I have two girls myself, and sometimes I feel they see me working, not just for them, but also for the country. So, if we think that being a good mother is also showing your children that you're of service not just to them, but to the whole country. Is that also something we should be thinking of?
Yes, so there are two issues. First of all sometimes depending on the age of your children it is very difficult to work very long hours. One good thing about COVID is that people realised that you can be at home, work from home and be super-efficient. So, I think companies or institutions should consider if they could allow the mother to stay at home and achieve the same thing. Unfortunately, we don't have so-called flexible working hours and the choice of working from home, which is something all developed countries have. So, I think it's time about changing the way we have worked so far and providing the environment for women to contribute, the way that makes them most comfortable. To realise that doing so, is the best for our country and our economy.
Coming back to the guilt issue. Fortunately, my mother worked, and she had three children. She did an excellent job at work; she didn't neglect her work at all. At the same time, she took care of three of us. When I say she took care of us, it's just not showing up, but providing us the same level of care (possibly better care) than any other non-working mother would give. She did everything for us, so that gave me the confidence that if she worked and did not neglect is, then I can do the same.
In Sri Lanka parents don’t make any differences in educating girls vs boys. So, when girls do well they get into university or get a very good job. But when a mother says I also did well in school, I got a degree, I was in this position in in in my career, but when you were born, I gave everything up: I mean you're not setting a good example for your kid. You're telling your daughters, work hard get a degree and a good job, but when you have kids, you have to give it up. So why work so hard and have dreams in the first place? Because of this, women think it has to be a choice of either having kids or a career. I know some women who don't want to give up on their career, so they don't have kids. I think that’s so sad, because for me and many other women, having kids is the most worthwhile part of life. Also I think for boys too, its good for the mother to set an example and give them confidence. One day they will be thinking: my mother was working and I was looked after well. So its OK for my wife to do the same. She can also work and look after our kids. But for our society to achieve these things, there should be support from the government and institutions.
Yes definitely, it's striking a balance and if Sri Lanka was to develop, many people should have the will to achieve that balance. So I hope this kind of conversation helps people to understand that, sometimes being the best mother might also show the children that you are a mother who also works for some greater good, while looking after them. Also if the choice of not having children was dependent on the career, it's a pity. I can think of many other reasons for not having kids, that's fine, but if the choice had been the career, it is sad.
Now let me leave the gender issue and come to some general questions in which this affects both male and female people. How many schools in our country actually have facilities at A level these science subjects, because according to the IPS report it's just about 10 percent of government schools.
Yes, I believe that's the case. A very limited number of schools do have teachers who are qualified to teach these STEM subjects. But even in the so-called very good schools in Colombo, although they have teachers, unfortunately because of our education system, the laboratory facilities are hardly used.
This is because the A level exam is such a rat-race. Its just about a route learning, memorising and reproducing it at the exams. It’s not about actually understanding the subject and answering questions. But even to do that, we have very limited number of schools in Sri Lanka. Because of that sometimes students choose subjects that they don’t want to do, because they don't have an option. However, we know that any human being, when they do something there they are not interested in, won’t do their best. So if you want to do your best, you have to follow your passion so I think this is one important thing that you have to pursue.
Apart from the teachers, surely the lab facilities also might be a very rarely found resource in rural areas right the labs that are needed
Yes, facilities are very not that great. I mean there are hardly any labs at all in rural areas. But even schools which do have labs, (I am sorry to say) do not use them, because the way our education system is. Its just about memorizing and not actually understanding the subject. So you don't do experiments to teach. Its just very exam orientated.
Right so it's two different problems. One is about education itself that we have lost the curiosity that a scientist should have to discover, and the other problem is the non-availability of science and technology subjects in rural areas. So would be the solution for such kids living in rural areas to go to schools which have such facilities? That option is there.
Yes, that option is there. But although the option is there, the school can be very far away, and it might take hours every day to travel to school and back so practically it might be very impossible.
Ok I see. Now let's get you to the issue of language apart. Given that these possibilities are there, would language be an issue of whether you choose to do science or not? You might have a real love for the subject, but these subjects at undergraduate level are in the English language. Would that turn people off or make them drop that dream? or is it something that they should not be worried about?
English is not only needed to understand lectures at undergraduate level. I think the lack of knowledge in English not only stops people from pursuing STEM subjects, I think they stop people from also persuing certain types of jobs. For instance, if you look at a lot of jobs available, they ask for fluency in English. Also we know that in university level all the books that are written are in English and if you want to read other resources, everything is in English. So if you don't know English, then that is actually a huge disadvantage. It is quite a sad situation for children coming from rural areas, because of the lack of fluency in English they lose a lot of opportunities, although they might be extremely clever. So the country is losing a huge resource.
What are the suggestions you have, for example a young person in a very rural area? How can they expose themselves to the language so that this doesn't become a distant dream?
Unfortunately, this gap is those who know English and don’t is getting wider. When we were young although we only had two television channels (Rupawahini and ITN), we had good quality Sinhalese and English programs. None of the English programs were dubbed. Since nothing was dubbed, even in the rural areas children would watch programs like ‘night rider’ and enjoy it, in English. Because they loved those programs, children would make every effort to understand. Now we have so many Hindi and Korean movies and teledramas. People seem to be learning Hindi and Korean without much difficulty. If you hear a language since childhood, is makes it so much easier to learn it. It's a pity to dub cartoons when and these childhood programs are a very important learning source of English.
I have said that for so long professor. Because it doesn't take too many resources to keep the program in the English. I hope somebody at the policy making or decision-making level will take note. When I was doing my masters, my children were very small, but one of them learned reading just through watching the TV. There are so many programs like Sesame street and other science programs which will help children so much. Also reading books in English will help so much.
I think there are a lot of students in the medical faculties, who come without much knowledge in English. In medical faculties all the exams and all the teaching are conducted in English. So in the first year and at the orientation there are programs to help for them to improve their medical English. I think the students who lack the knowledge of English are at a disadvantage there's no denying that. That's why I said it’s a sad situation. As you said, apart from watching programs in English, also reading any English book, fiction or anything you like, will help a lot.
So, finally, to everyone who is listening, you know, it's a journey, it's achievable, expose yourself to the language, learn it because so many doors can open if you have the intellect and the desire to work hard and make whatever commitment necessary to dedicated work. So thank you for being that example, Professor, thank you for being the inspiration you are, and thank you for your time today to come and talk in this channel.