Financial Times

Education the path to knowledge and Economic Power
By Sunil Karunanayake
Our columnist reflects on the key issue of education and related aspects and why we need to come up with quick solutions or lose out in the development race.

Knowledge is power and education is the provider of knowledge. Long before the UN declaration of Education for All, Sri Lanka was ahead with its “Free education Policy” and a well established central school system and an organized private school structure catering to primary and secondary education needs in all part of the country.

In the 1940’s Sri Lanka reached a model status in providing widespread access to primary and secondary education enabling the country to reach a high level of human development. UN efforts to reduce global poverty through education which commenced in 2000 have only achieved partial success to date.

Education faces problems across the world. Universities are under funded, quality of degrees are a issue and the benefits from state funded education are more often enjoyed by the affluent rather than the less privileged. Deficiencies of the school curriulum and increasing unemployment among graduates is another matter of concern.

We still find immense opposition in setting up private universities despite large amounts of foreign reserves being spent acquiring such degrees from foreign universities. With the establishment of a Board for Quality Assurance becoming a reality private universities when set up will be subject to regulation and such reviews should comfort the public.

Last Sunday afternoon sitting at the public Library Auditorium for Chandrika Mahagamarachchi ‘s book launch I had the opportunity of listening to a rather explosive delivery by a former civil servant and scholar Dr Amara Hewamadduma who made a refreshing contribution. He pointed out the blunder made by the educational authorities a few decades back in packaging history into “Social Studies” an assortment of many subjects resulting in generations without required knowledge in history.

Dr Hewa Medduma tracing his roots to a farming family in the outskirts of Matara proudly stated how his father a simple villager sent his entire family to the city private schools for education providing the privilege of studying in English medium.

The learned scholar was forthright in saying that the schools take over was a costly mistake. Sri Lanka banned the establishment of private schools in the early sixties and is yet among the few in the world to legally ban the setting up of schools.

On the brighter side there have been few good developments in the higher education sphere with the aim of adding more quality to the degree. The World Bank funded Improvement of the Relevance and quality of the Undergraduate education (IRQUE) project is now in full steam with the participation of all 13 universities in the island and the Institute Of Chartered Accountants.

The results to date have been positive and encouraging with newfound enthusiasm both among the academics and students. In fact it is said that the traditional black flags and posters have now disappeared from the campuses. The students are responding well to the ongoing improvements and seem to be getting the “privatization phobia” out of their minds. Developing countries with fiscal deficiencies like ours need to depend on these supportive measures through concessionary financing to upgrade the tertiary education.

Earlier this month the World Bank launched a new initiative with the objective of “Developing excellent education institutions that will enable Sri Lanka to achieve high levels of human development and national income, creating progressive and equitable benefits to all sectors “. This US$ 60 million project is said to be the largest ever grant given by the World Bank to Sri Lanka.The mechanism will be provided by the Comprehensive Education Sector Development Program for the period 2006 to 2010 prepared by the National Education Commission. World Bank funds will be committed to develop high quality schools in all parts of Sri Lanka with emphasis on first language, English and Mathematics.

The disparity between the much sought after popular schools in the cities and the rural schools has created a mad rush by parents to seek entry to such elitist schools at any cost. Increasing demand for quality and stagnant supply has created a major crisis in school admissions leading to corruption and malpractices reaching great proportions which even prompted the authorities to take stern action against school heads and shift the admission machinery to the ministry. Given this background the new initiative brings in lot of promise and hope.

Today there’s an increasing thirst for education and for a country like Sri Lanka we must make maximum economic use of the intellectual capital. We cannot forever be mere spectators of seeing foreign investment flowing to neighbouring countries in a thriving Asian economic upsurge.

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