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Wake up call!

The sad story of a borderline retarded nation – Part I

When I first spoke about we Sri Lankans having an IQ level of 79 and that the category we fall into is borderline (borderline intellectual functioning), there were many interesting responses. The responses ranged from highly educated personnel in high echelons of the society to undergraduates. The responses varied from disbelief to some kind of denial;

“Why then does nobody speak about it?”

“You could say that, but I won’t agree.”

“These IQ tests are controversial.”

“It could be because it’s western research.”

“It can’t be because we have a very high literacy rate.”

“You know, all this is part of the foreign conspiracy.”

The answers I gave were, respectively;

“That is why I AM speaking.”

“You don’t have to agree with me, just look it up.”

“Anything is controversial when we don’t want to accept it.”

“Yes, we have this habit of blaming the west whenever we can’t accept certain truths/realities.”

“Literacy rate does not mean much. It is simply the percentage of people who are able to read and write their own name.”

“I thought depositing everything we cannot find reasons for into this ‘foreign conspiracy’ account was over now in this ‘yahapalanaya’ era.”

What is this IQ level and what does it measure?

According to American Psychological Association (APA), Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is an index derived from standardized tests of intelligence; originally obtained by dividing an individual’s mental age by chronological age and then multiplying by 100; now directly computed as an IQ test score. APA defines Intelligence as the global capacity to profit from experience and to go beyond given information about the environment.

The IQ test is one of the most popular ways to measure intelligence. There are other ways to measure intelligence in a nation as well. Some of them are;

1) School test scores in subjects such as science and mathematics. They give an indication of how school-aged children are learning and performing in a country. This is an effective way to look at how a country’s education system works.

2) By examining a country’s contributions to the fields of mathematics and science. If a country is working well on inventions and research, that can be considered a good indicator of the intelligence of its scientists (but perhaps not of its general population).

3) By examining how many people in its population have basic degrees, masters degrees, or PhDs (however, these depend on access to education as well).

What is the IQ of Sri Lankans?

There are indexes of international IQ ranking.

Singapore generally ranks first with 108. Hong Kong has the same IQ. Second is South Korea with 106. UK and China have 100. United States and Australia have 98. Our neighbour, India’s is 82. Ours is 79. The same IQ level as ours (79) is shared by two other countries: Guatemala and Zambia. Even Kenya’s is above us (80). Lowest in the list is Equatorial Guinea with 59.

According to a report (2010), the intelligence scores came from work carried out earlier this decade by Richard Lynn, a British psychologist, and TatuVanhanen, a Finnish political scientist, who analysed IQ studies from 113 countries, and from subsequent work by Jelte Wicherts, a Dutch psychologist.

We are “Borderline” according to IQ classification in educational use (70 – 79). Below us are the “Extremely Low” category.

We are “Borderline Intellectual Functioning” in psychiatric use (71 – 84). We are just above the “Mild Mental Retardation” category.

What is the definition of ‘Borderline’?

According to Jannelien Wieland and Frans G. Zitman (2016), researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, the term borderline intellectual functioning describes a group of people who function on the border between normal intellectual functioning and intellectual disability, between 1 and 2 standard deviations below the mean on the normal curve of the distribution of intelligence, roughly an IQ between 70 and 85. According to the normal curve, as much as 13.6% of the population falls into this category.

What is ‘Intellectual Functioning’?

According to the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, intellectual functioning, also called intelligence, refers to general mental capacity, such as learning, reasoning, problem solving, and so on.

What does this information/data tell us?

As stated above, according to the normal curve of IQ of a country, about 13.6% of the total population falls into this category. However, if an entire nation’s IQ level falls into this category, needless to say that the majority is likely to be in the borderline category, or even lower.

So we have become a nation of borderline intellectual functioning. As I stated before, one may disagree, argue or look down upon research, but this needs a serious discussion.

It is important to look at what psychologists and psychiatrists think of the problem of borderline intellectual functioning and how they locate it in social / cultural context as well. The aforesaid researchers state that in the past, this condition was viewed by American Psychiatric Association, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). APA, 1952 as follows;

…borderline intellectual functioning was called mild mental deficiency, listed in the section ‘Mental Deficiency’. The classification applied when there was both an IQ of about 1 to 2 standard deviations below the mean (equalling an IQ between 70 and 85) and functional impairment. DSM-I already made a plea for a classification based on more than a standardised IQ test alone. It states that cultural, physical and emotional determinants, as well as school, vocational and social effectiveness, should be taken into consideration.5 (APA, 1952.)

According to modern research, DSM and ICD (International Classification of Diseases), do not consider borderline intellectual functioning as a disorder. However, studies do consider people with borderline intellectual functioning, (or an IQ between 70 and 85), as a vulnerable group. As research indicates, genetic liability, biological causes such as perinatal difficulties, and epigenetic factors such as socioeconomic status and maternal stress all contribute to borderline intellectual functioning (Wieland and Zitman, 2016).

It seems that modern research has moderated the way of looking at the problem and tried to be more diplomatic in its labeling the issue as “problems with adaptive functioning”. Therefore, it presents the diagnosis of the problem as follows; “In adult life, contrary to the DSM-III statement, perhaps increasingly so owing to the growing complexity of society, many people with borderline intellectual functioning do have problems in adaptive functioning” (Wieland and Zitman, 2016).

What is ‘Adaptive behaviour’/‘Adaptive functioning’?

According to the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, adaptive behaviour is the collection of conceptual, social, and practical skills that are learned and performed by people in their everyday lives.

(i) Conceptual skills—language and literacy; money, time, and number concepts; and self-direction.

(ii) Social skills—interpersonal skills, social responsibility, self-esteem, gullibility, naïveté (i.e., wariness), social problem solving, and the ability to follow rules/obey laws and to avoid being victimized.

(iii) Practical skills—activities of daily living (personal care), occupational skills, healthcare, travel/transportation, schedules/routines, safety, use of money, use of the telephone.

Those who are in the “Borderline intellectual functioning” category have problems with learning and using the aforesaid skills. Standardized tests can also determine limitations in adaptive behaviour.

What do the other indicators tell us about the nation’s intelligence?

Researchers have established the relationship between IQ level and Educational Achievement (EA) and that they could be used interchangeably. According to Richard Lynn and Gerhard Meisenberg (2010), the high correlation between IQ and EA shows that these two measures are not merely two otherwise unrelated “development indicators.” It rather shows that intelligence tests and scholastic achievement tests measure the same or nearly the same construct to the extent that educational attainment is important for a country’s economic or cultural destiny, IQ is important as well. They suggest that both can be used interchangeably as measures of “human capital.”

Indicators of ‘Educational Achievement’ (EA)

As stated elsewhere in this article, school test scores in subjects such as science and mathematics are supposed to be good indicators of how school-aged children are learning and performing in a country. Also, this is an effective parameter to gauge how a country’s education system works.

As a nation that prides in its free education and access to education, we ought to have better percentages of these two critical subject areas. Unfortunately, in math, we have not been able to cross at least 60% over the years. In science, it has been between 60-68%. Also, the data shows that the pass percentage of mathematics has been declining.

In looking at the data, one has to remember that the pass percentages include simple passes with the cut-off limit usually at 40 marks. In certain years, some news reports say that this pass mark has been lowered. For example, it has been lowered to 17 in 2010;

MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake stated that the pass marks for a Simple (S) Pass in Maths in the G.C.E. Ordinary Level examinations had been lowered to 17 marks last year. Education qualifications should not be derogated in this manner, he said in Parliament today (Dec. 15). -E-paper, December 15, 2011

With reports such as above, one has to be quite skeptical about the pass percentages. Can these then actually be considered as “pass percentages”? Also, if the results are to be recalculated with 17 as the pass mark, then what is the actual math pass percentage with 40 mark limit? According to the evaluation report (2010) issues by the Dept. of Examinations, the percentages of passes in math are as follows:

If the claim made by the MP in the aforesaid statement is true, the percentage of passes in mathematics in 2010 is actually 39.24%. How alarming it is! With nearly about half of Sri Lanka’s younger generation (in some years, 2/3) failing in these critical areas, it is not surprising that its IQ level is in the borderline intellectual functioning category. Also over the years, the failure percentage has increased signaling the danger that we, as a nation, are in. This poses serious questions as authorities need to know that “showing off numbers” does not help a nation to grow. Failure in mathematics, a crucial subject that helps students develop critical thinking, logical thinking, problem solving skills, etc. must say something about the nation and its education system.

Other than G.C.E. (O/L) math and science results, how many PhDs does Sri Lanka have serving the nation? What is our contribution to innovations and research? According to the former Minister of Higher Education (2010), over 2,200 university academics accounting for 60 percent of the entire staff do not have PhD qualifications.

In institutes other than universities which require PhD holders the most, it is very unlikely that there are many PhD holders. Also it is a well-known fact that research and innovations are at an extremely pathetic level in all spheres in the country.

With all such data, it is important to understand and accept that we are a nation with borderline intellectual functioning. Once we fully grasp this bitter truth only we can find solutions. If we ignore this acute national problem and live in the ‘bubble of 2500 years of glorified history’ inside the ‘98% of literacy rate cocoon’, there is no hope for this nation. 


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