Rev. Fr. Dom Stephen Abraham’s exemplary leadership illuminated St. Anthony’s College, Kandy.

Source: Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)·21 Dec 2014

Sri Lanka has many commendable educators who are today true role models, especially for those inexperienced and looking for a vocation to follow. One such illustrious individual is Rev. Fr. Dom Stephen Abraham, OSB. Born on 15th February 1933, during his formative years, he received schooling at St. John’s, Dematagoda. This was until he was 14 years old. Thereafter, for another three years, he was educated at St. Joseph’s College, Maradana. Subsequently, he joined Air Ceylon at the age of 17 for three years. Following this stint, he joined the Bank of Ceylon from 1953-1956 as a clerk.

In celebration of the school’s 125th Anniversary in 1979, Rev. Fr. Dom Stephen Abraham organized a grand exhibition encompassing all activities of the school. To mark this momentous occasion and highlight the school’s achievements over the years, he invited the country’s first Executive President, His Excellency J. R. Jayewardene, and Education Minister Nissanka Wijeratna as honoured guests.

In the fol­low­ing year, 1980, Prime Min­is­ter R. Pre­madasa graced the Prize Giv­ing as Chief Guest. Im­pressed with the School’s progress and in grat­i­tude to Fa­ther Stephen’s ser­vices, the Prime Min­is­ter do­nated a class­ room block of eight classes which con­trib­uted to the school’s in­fra­struc­ture and ad­min­istra­tion. The block was named the ‘Pre­madasa Block’.

Dur­ing his ten­ure, Fa­ther Stephen planned the beau­tifica­tion of the school where sev­eral in­fra­struc­ture projects when com­pleted con­tribut­ing to­ wards an im­pres­sive learn­ ing en­viron­ment. Among th­ese were a gym­na­sium and pavil­ion, a three-storey build­ing, a scoreboard, a bas­ket­ball court and even the rebuild­ing of the ter­race pro­vid­ing the school with ev­ery imag­in­able conve­nience.

On the premise that a good leader is not a dic­tator, he en­sured a par­tic­i­pa­tive ad­min­is­tration and by ex­am­ple created a truly ad­mirable and pleas­ant sur­round­ ing where ed­u­ca­tion flour­ished.

His legacy is to­day con­sid­ered by many as a ‘provider of com­forts’ . An in­di­vid­ual who objec­tively at­tended to all re­quired mat­ters per­tain­ing to the bet­ter­ment of the school in­cluding de­vel­op­ing pub­lic re­la­tions with all par­ties in­volved in the School’s de­vel­op­ment.

Among his many achieve­ments is where he over­saw the con­duct­ing of the School’s Prize Giv­ing in a meaning­ful man­ner, where good work was rec­og­nized and re­warded. As a re­sult of th­ese struc­tural changes, he re­ceived ac­co­lades from the then Depart­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion who com­mended the open­ness and re­ward­ing stu­dents.

The Rev. Fr also in­au­gu­rated a Com­puter Lab and equipped it with six black and white moni­tors and stu­dents were trained in the use of the com­put­ers in turn en­hanc­ing their IT skills. Stu­dents were also in­structed in elec­tron­ics and mod­ern tech­nol­ogy. Through th­ese classes and train­ing, news and com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the school was eas­ily cir­cu­lated.

Fa­ther Stephen re­al­ized that the lack of light­ing posed a se­vere draw­back to chil­dren in class­ rooms where light­ ing was in­sufficient. With this un­der­ stand­ ing he in­stalled better light­ing and thereby elim­i­nated a long felt need, cre­at­ing bet­ter con­di­tions for stu­dents to en­gage in stud­ies.

In an effort to de­velop the stan­dard of the stu­dents sit­ ting for their Or­di­nary Lev­els Ex­am­ina­tion, with the hope of gen­er­at­ing bet­ter re­sults, he im­ple­mented sev­eral note­wor­thy pro­grammes to en­cour­age them to study. As a re­sult of th­ese efforts St. An­thony’s Col­lege at­tained over­ all in place among the Cen­tral Prov­ince, a proud achieve­ ment for the school.

In efforts to up­lift the stan­dard of sports in the school, he im­ple­mented projects in­clud­ing a com­pul­sory phys­i­cal pro­gramme for stu­dents. Through this the stu­dents de­vel­oped both phys­i­cally and men­tally ensuring a higher stan­dard of sports, es­pe­cially in cricket, rugby, ta­ble ten­nis, bas­ket­ball and bad­minton. This con­trib­uted to cre­at­ing a group of com­pet­i­tive sports­men of in­ter­na­tional re­pute; Bernard Per­ era, Marlon Von­haght, Priyan­tha Ekanayaka, Udaya Weer­akoon, Piyal Wi­je­tunga, Ruwan Kal­page, Christo­pher Arnolda, Jeewa, Sajith Fer­nando, and of course Mut­tiah Mu­ral­idaran.

In ad­vis­ing the teacher in charge of scout­ing, Rev. Fr. helped the School achieve a land­ mark when 50 Scouts were nom­i­nated for the Pres­i­den­tial Award. Through their efforts a des­titute in­di­vid­ual in the Pil­i­math­alawa re­gion was gifted a house. He as­sisted in or­ga­niz­ing the 1991 Scout­ing Jam­boree, and pro­moted the move­ ment. This cre­ated an in­ creased in­terest in scout­ ing as an ac­tiv­ity es­pe­cially among pri­mary stu­dents.

Help­ing the teacher in charge of agri­cul­ture, Fa­ther Stephen com­menced a pro­gramme to beau­tify the school sur­round­ings through grow­ing in­dige­nous plants, and other agri­cultural and flower plants help­ing stu­dents un­der­stand cul­ti­va­tion and at the same time helping to cre­ate a last­ing im­pres­sion on par­ents vis­it­ing the school.

He also over­saw the ren­o­va­tion of the School’s pre­fects build­ing, en­cour­aged the stu­dents through educational trips, and other pro­ grams, thus cre­at­ing a more mean­ing­ful school­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and help­ing to in­still ded­ica­tion among them.

Note­wor­thy is that dur­ing his ten­ure se­ri­ous dis­ci­plinary is­sues were neg­li­gi­ble among the stu­dents. This was brought to the at­ten­tion of the Ed­u­ca­tion Depart­ment ap­prais­ers who heaped praise on the school and its admin­is­tra­tors for the ex­em­plary dis­ci­pline demonstrated by the stu­dents.

Dur­ing the 1989 in­sur­gency, through Fa­ther Stephen’s bold and fear­less de­ci­sions, the School did not face any prob­lems and while other schools were forced to shut down, St. Antony’s con­tin­ued its school­ing ac­tiv­i­ties un­in­ter­rupted.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the School De­vel­op­ ment So­ci­ety and in con­sul­ta­tion with the Department of Education, Rev. Fr. su­per­vised a se­ries of in­fra­struc­ture pro­grams con­tribut­ing to St. An­thony’s reach­ing its zenith among the pres­ti­gious schools in the Cen­tral Prov­ince.

As an ex­em­plary in­di­vid­ual, Fr. Stephen never ac­cu­mu­lated per­sonal wealth. Dur­ing a sojourn abroad, the do­na­tions he re­ceived were used to build 25 houses for 25 in­di­vid­u­als em­ployed in the school, this was essentially for the support staff. This was in com­mem­o­ration of his 25th an­niver­sary of priest­hood. The village was named St. An­thony’s Vil­lage and held in con­currence with the Gam Udava hous­ing scheme of Pres­i­dent Pre­madasa.

Rev. Fr. Stephen Abra­ham’s ac­com­plish­ments have all con­trib­uted to­wards the bet­ter­ment of all in­di­vid­u­als, ir­re­spec­tive of class or creed. His legacy will en­dure for many eons. Praise God.