Sunday, January 15, 2012
Dispossession of Education and Youth Indebtedness
January 14, 2012, 4:42 pm , The Island.
By Ahilan Kadirgamar
One of the strongest pillars of our society is again under attack by the State. Generations of educationists, concerned parents, students and the broader citizenry contributed towards building a solid free education system, and the foundation they laid has withstood major insurrections, counter repression, civil war and economic crises. And now, given the post-war opportunity for social development, public investment in education should be aggressively increased to build on that legacy. However, the Rajapaksa regime is on the short-sighted and socially devastating path to end free education. Neo-liberal privatisation of education, which I will address here, is being pushed by states around the world in the interest of finance capital. It is ironic that while it is the economic crisis that is blamed in the Western world for budget cuts and the neoliberalisation of education, in Sri Lanka the assault on education is thrust forward with the false promise of a prosperous economic future.
Ending Free Education
"Four regulatory and monitoring bodies will be established under the proposed Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Qualification Framework Act to monitor and regulate private degree-awarding institutions, private universities and academies..." claimed a news item earlier this week. It went on to quote the Higher Education Ministry Secretary, Sunil Navaratne, who said that " these monitoring bodies would oversee degree programmes, time allocated for degree and diploma programmes, the time allocated to lectures, the qualifications of the academic staff, the recruiting policies and minimum qualifications required for degree and diploma programmes" and continued, "private higher educational institutes have been registered under the Department of Registration of Companies or under the BOI or both as private establishments. But there is no proper monitoring system…"
The Act mentioned above is what others are calling the privatisation of higher education bill, and it is a bad omen for what is in store for educational policy in the coming months. The Secretary’s comments are deeply worrying for a number of reasons. First, it raises concerns about the future of academic freedom with vast powers given to the Ministry of Higher Education. Second, free education is looking to come under attack with public education cannibalised by private education. Third, the encroachment of businesses and companies into education over the past decade, rather than being curtailed or abolished, are now to be regularised. In other words, this attack on free education is going to mould the educational system with a business mind-set. The Secretary’s interview is not an aberration but reflects a much larger project at work towards privatising education. While another news item claimed that the privatisation bill has been shelved for the moment at the recent Cabinet meeting, if one is to learn from the manner in which the anti-democratic 18th Amendment was eventually passed after some dithering in 2010, one should expect the Rajapaksa regime to push this bill forward in the near future.
The process of change expected from recent Government pronouncements is very similar to the World Bank report of July 2009, available on their website and titled, ‘The Towers of Learning: Performance, Peril and Promise of Higher Education in Sri Lanka’. Much like the Secretary, the World Bank also speaks of "National Qualification Frameworks", "quality assurance" and "accreditation". It also discusses the challenges of planning and financing higher education. While it rightly calls for an increase in government expenditure, the main thrust is towards public-private partnerships; with the government subsidising educational businesses. The World Bank report also discusses the issues of unemployment facing our graduates, but the solutions it proposes are no guarantees for employment creation. Specifically, it is uncertain how adopting a business model of education will increase employment. There is no clear link between privatising education and a rise in employment opportunities. For then, how does one account for the increasing unemployment in the Western economies whose educational system the World Bank would like us to emulate?
This thrust of the World Bank’s approach was also echoed in the annual report of the Central Bank for 2010, released mid-year 2011. In fact, the Central Bank report even used the language of financing through the commodification of education: "Entrepreneurial orientation of university education is another possible avenue for alternative financing as well as attracting foreign students from other countries." Indeed, the Rajapaksa regime does not seem to have a vision for the economy other than making the country and our society entirely dependent on tourism, which now may be extending to foreign students and educational tourism.
The Neo-liberal Logic of Privatising Education
Ending free education through a major push to privatise education has thus been in the works over the last three years if not longer. It is my contention, that the post-war period and the second term of President Rajapaksa have opened worrying possibilities of neo-liberalising education as part of a second wave of neo-liberalism coming after the first wave under the Jayewardene regime. The last two budgets and the annual reports of the Central Bank reflect this second wave of neoliberalism supported by global finance capital and neoliberal institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. While I have discussed this second wave of neo-liberalism and the neo-liberal budget in the past, I would like to discuss here some specific concerns as they relate to the neo-liberalisation of education.
I must first acknowledge some issues intrinsic to education and the educational system, which many veteran academics and activist intellectuals have already addressed. For example, several academics have pointed to the dangers of the increasing militarisation of education undermining academic freedom. Others have articulated aspects of social values, democratisation and our sense of freedom from the time of Independence that is tied to the egalitarian ethos endemic to free education. The various interventions by the Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) and the seminar organised last week at the University of Colombo by the University Teachers for Democracy and Dialogue (UT4DD) reflect a range of important views on privatising education.
My point is about the political economic aspects related to the neoliberal logic of privatising education. This process of privatisation exploits the economically weaker sections of society through "accumulation by dispossession"; where education costs are borne by the poor through increasing indebtedness in order for educational businesses to flourish and global capital to accumulate. If we are to learn from the failure of educational policies in the West, the major lesson is that the cuts in public funding towards education and a business mind-set have devastated the economic and social life of recent generations of youth. In fact, the establishment-leaning Economist magazine itself recently claimed that student loans in the US are exceeding US$ 1 trillion. Such debt has crippled the economic future of millions of youth, as they are unlikely to find jobs to pay back such enormous loans. Furthermore, increasing income inequalities over the last few decades of the tenure of neo-liberalism have further aggravated their economic situation.
Now, one of the World Bank report’s recommendations for Sri Lanka claims: "Private HEIs [Higher Education Institution] charge fees which could make it difficult for gifted students from poor homes to access their services. This can be overcome by policies to provide talented poor students with student aid, such as vouchers, scholarships, bursaries and loans." In fact, such a move could severely indebt our youth and poorer families could lose even their meagre assets and homes in the hope of educating their children for a better future. Thus the Rajapaksa regime’s move to privatise education is not only a betrayal of the State’s so-called social contract to meet the costs of reproducing society, but also a capitulation to the interests of global finance capital preying on the rural and urban masses.
Demands and Protests
In this dire context, strike action by FUTA last year and particularly their demand calling for government expenditure on education equivalent to 6% of GDP was a welcome move. In fact, government expenditure on education has fallen steadily between 2006 and 2010 from 2.7% down to 1.9% of GDP. In 2010, budgetary expenditure on education was a mere 7.3% compared to the 14.9% average for South Asia. Both as a proportion of GDP and of the Budget, Sri Lanka by far spends the least on education in South Asia, and competes with lowest spenders in the world. Indeed, even the World Bank report claims that: "Countries such as South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, whose economic performance is of interest for Sri Lankan policy, invest over four percent of GDP and between 15 and 28 percent of Government expenditures on education."
Given the post-war priorities of social reconstruction, a serious commitment towards education calls for major increases in the educational budget and similar decreases for example in the defence budget. However, the timely and forthright FUTA demand of 6% of GDP for education cannot stand on its own. Teachers and students will have to unite with other sections of society facing dispossession. Changing the structure of the economy to accommodate social welfare will have to come hand in hand with struggles for democracy to challenge the authoritarian neo-liberal bent of the Rajapaksa regime. Furthermore, engaging the economic problems in Sri Lanka should involve understanding the global context, particularly as forces shaping economic policies are global as much as they are national.
Over the last year, there have been mounting protests and even riots by students, in Greece, US, UK and a number of other countries. Those protests have as much to do with neoliberal dispossession of education, as the protests by university students here in the context of the privatisation bill. And militarised policing in those countries have been as much a part of repression as have the recent incidents in our national universities. In the context of the State demonising students protesting at the barricades, the least we can do is show solidarity and voice our protest against the privatisation bill that will dispossess education and throw our youth into life-long indebtedness.
Another Brick In The Wall
- Education and Sri Lankan Ministers
S.B. Dissanayake, Bandula Gunawardena and Mohan Lal Grero
The recent A/L result fiasco, the public outcry against the government and its education ministers have taken center stage for messing up the future of children.
Typically none of the five ministers have come forward to take responsibility but instead have passed the buck on to certain government officials. In addition the country’s entire higher education system too is in the doldrums.
From the time Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake took office university unrest has worsened. Universities are closed for a good part of each semester.
Considering all these factors questions have now been raised as to why a small country like ours need so many education ministers.
In the central government alone there are five ministers for education- Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena and his Deputy Minister Vijith Wijayamuni Soyza, Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake and his Deputy Minister Nandimithra Ekanayake and Mohan Lal Grero as the Monitoring Education MP.
In addition all the nine provinces have their own Education Ministers and their deputies and Monitoring Provincial Council Members. What their duties are and whether they have fulfilled them is the multi million rupee question – which is costing this country and her future generation dearly.
Eyebrows are being raised as to why such a number of ministers are maintained with public money when they have failed even to regularize a proper mechanism for grade one admission.
From grade one to grade twelve each year the debacles remain endless. Closure of schools, lack of teachers in remote schools, grade one admission mess, delay in printing government text books or delay in distributing uniform materials, errors in school text books, disclosure of grade five scholarship exam papers, errors in O/L exam papers and the latest being the A/L result fiasco.
The question is who is responsible?
With regard to the A/L fiasco, according to the government the preliminary investigations have revealed that it was the data entry operators that have messed up the results but nothing to do with the relevant ministers. Sri Lanka is the only country that puts the blame on officials when it comes to any irregularity but grabs credit to the government for any achievements.
There were protests all over the country demanding the review of the A/L results as there were instances that students have received results for different subjects for which they have not sat at the examination.
“This is the state of this wonder of Asia. The vision for the future which is the emerging wonder of Sri Lanka as stated in the bankrupt Mahinda Chinthanaya,” said an angry teacher from one of Sri Lanka’s premier boys schools Royal College Colombo.
Meanwhile, many universities have been shut indefinitely after university students protested against the formation of private universities in the country.
Despite the arrests of student leaders last year, and the pending trials, college unrest has returned on a large scale causing major disruption in the country’s higher education system
Amongst the abuse meted out against the students are – virginity tests that were carried out forcefully on female students by the head of the Sri Jayawardenapura University, providing security to some universities by a private security firm owned by a certain high official in the Defence Ministry and deploying army and police to thwart student protests.
“Protesting students had been evicted from the Sri Jayawardenapura university last week by a court order following a monument of a killed student being destroyed by the army although they (army) deny the claim,” a university student said.
Meanwhile these university students claim that the government is interfering in their work and accused the Higher Education Minister who too was a union leader in his days at the Peradeniya University for trying to privatize the country’s higher education system.
“This is why all these suppressions are meted out against us. The primary and secondary schools are now in the process of closing down systematically. That was why the President clearly stated in his budget speech that selected 1000 schools in the country would be re-organized. If so what will happen to the other 8662 schools in the country. Nearly 300 schools have already closed down and it is estimated that there are 1528 schools in the country with less than 100 students in each school. Sufficient infrastructure has to be provided to these schools together with the required number of teachers. Without concentrating to these lapses they are trying to privatize the entire education system,” a student of Jayawardenapura University told The Sunday Leader on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile adding worst to the higher education system in the country the Executive Committee of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA), at its meeting held on January 6, has decided to resort to trade union action to urge the government and the higher educational authorities to uphold the commitments made to the academics in the country.
As its first move, all members of the unions affiliated to the FUTA will hold a token strike on Tuesday January 17.
According to the FUTA the government deliberately failed to uphold the promise given to them when they had the discussion with President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2011.
“The three month long trade union action launched by the FUTA last year was temporarily suspended following the agreements reached between the FUTA and the government through the direct intervention of the President. Since then the FUTA worked tirelessly with University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Higher Education Ministry to reach the goals but however, the higher educational authorities consistently failed to uphold the assurances given to the university academics,” The FUTA said.
The FUTA wishes to summarize the foremost amongst the commitments that were promised by the governmental authorities.
“We demanded FUTA representation at decision-making processes pertaining to the education and higher education- which was one of the key demands to which the authorities agreed. However we have reliably understands that Quality Assurance Accreditation and Qualification Framework Bill commonly known as the Non-State University Bill which has already received the cabinet approval will be presented to the Parliament this month without a proper dialogue of Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Deans, Heads of Academic Departments, Senate and Council members and academic staff of the universities. As a result the academic staff have deeply disturbed and puzzled over the secrecy behind the purported bill which is against the agreement,” President FUTA said.
FUTA also stressed the need of proving enough of money on higher education.
“A recent World Bank report shows that Sri Lanka spends only 1 .9% of the GDP on education although it has to be increased up to 6% of the GDP, the lowest in the region, while other middle income countries spend on average 4.6% of their GDP. To fulfill Sri Lanka’s aspirations of becoming a knowledge hub, FUTA recommended that this has to be increased; however this recommendation too has been neglected,” alleged the FUTA .
Meanwhile they alleged that the right of the Universities to spend even the small amounts of money allocated for the education of the students has been taken away.
“Even the pittance provided for higher education has been snatched away in order to pay for costly government sponsored projects such as imposing ultra-expensive security firms while the standard tender procedures of hiring and outsourcing have been deliberately avoided,” FUTA President Prof. Nirmal Ranjith said.
The implementations of the salary scheme in compliance with the Jiffry-Malik proposals of 2008 too have failed by the government according to Prof. Ranjith.
“Though the authorities agreed to consider the above proposal, there has been no genuine interest in implementing the proposals while no attempts have been made to address the salary issue of the university teachers from the previous budget,” he said. FUTA Spokesperson, Dr. Mahim Mendis told The Sunday Leader that the proposed trade union actions followed by the token strike would be extremely serious.
“Leave alone our salaries why could not the government allocate at least 6% from the gross domestic product (GDP). When the government has allocated much more funds to other unimportant sectors, the allocation for the higher education is far more less than the other countries in the region. This is the reason why the country’s tertiary literacy level is below 7% although the primary literacy level is said to be 90%,” claimed Dr. Mendis.
Dr. Mendis said that their salaries too have to be increased on par with the Central Bank salary scales.
“We wanted the government to increase our salaries step by step to reach the Central Bank salary scale. It is the university academics that produce the experts for the national development in the country. As a result of this step-motherly treatment to university lecturers, the brain drain will get accelerated and that was why our universities have failed to retain PhD holders but surviving mainly with the BA and MA holders,” said Dr. Mendis.
According to Dr. Mendis, there are not more than 25- 30% PhD holders in each university academic staff and accuses the government for its failure to retain them due to poor salary structures.
“University Dons with PhD leave the country in search of greener pasture as they are not paid well. How could a country produce intellectuals without a proper education given to the university students by PhD holders? In Sri Lanka the university students are taught by BA and MA holders who are qualified to lecture primary and secondary education,” alleged Dr. Mendis.
When contacted, Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena said that he was able to streamline the country’s education system and has new plans to upgrade the schools in the country specially the remote schools.
However he got annoyed when asked as to what happened to the A/L examination fiasco and who was at fault.
Deputy Education Minister Vijith Wijayamuni Soyza after an ‘official’ foreign tour was not available for a comment as his mobile phone was switched off since his arrival to the country.
Higher Education Minister Nandimithra Ekanayake was away in UK for a world education forum from January 9 to 11 but his ministry officials told The Sunday Leader that he will be back only after January 15. Education Monitoring MP Mohan Lal Grero too was out of the country and not available for comment.
Quality of University Education
January 14, 2012, 4:43 pm, The Island.
Prof. N.A.de S. Amaratunga
There had been several letters in The Island on the subject of university education written by erudite scholars. In this brief note I would attempt to present another aspect of this problem. There was a time when the objective of university education was to train a person for life. Now the aim of university education it seems is to train a person for a job. In fact the employability of the product appears to be the main criterion for assessment of the quality of university education. Times have changed it appears and perhaps everybody is enslaved in the struggle for achieving the dubious goal of economic development. The important question is, caught as we are in that predicament, could anybody or any university pursue a different path and have a different goal. Could university education while improving the employability of its product also instill the good human qualities that equip a person for life? Or is the world so degenerate that these two goals are incompatible?
University education may have several important objectives and the following three may be more important in the context of the need to improve employability while enhancing the human qualities; (1) improve the problem solving ability of the graduate, (2) improve the creative ability of the graduate and (3) enhance the sensitivity of the graduate, which could be defined as heightened awareness of oneself and others within the context of personal and social relationships. Obviously good human qualities would stand in good stead in the procurement of employment as well and thus there is no need for these two goals to be incompatible. The above three objectives if realised would significantly enable a person not only to find a job but also to lead a harmonious life.
A university graduate has to be of a higher caliber and must posses the intellect and the capacity to solve the problems that afflict the individual, the community or the environment as the case may be depending on the work he or she is engaged in. Whether the graduate is a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a scientist, a bank manager, an economist, an agriculturist or a factory manager what he or she would be called upon to do very often is problem solving. If this person has not been adequately trained in the methods of problem solving he would not make a good doctor, an engineer, a scientist etc. The concept of problem based learning which has been incorporated in the curricula of some universities has arisen out of the need for the above mentioned competency. The employability of a graduate and also the prospects of keeping a job and gaining promotion would very much depend on his or her problem solving ability. Problems arise not only in employment but abundantly in life too. A person who has a developed ability to solve problems would be well equipped to face life. Unfortunately the curricula and particularly the learning methods adopted by most of the Sri Lankan universities do not focus adequately on this aspect of education.
Creativity is an inherent human characteristic and its manifestation is variable among human beings. When creativity is nurtured to its optimum capacity the chances of producing great poets, musicians, novelists, scientists, engineers, physicians etc. are enhanced. Else those who have the potential, if denied of the environment and the opportunities, may never develop to their full capacity. Unfortunately in the universities creativity appears to be considered less important except perhaps in the area of fine arts. Even in the areas like literature and architecture, weightage given for creativity and the facilitation provided for its growth are inadequate. This is understandable given the present need to train people to perform stereotyped functions like machines in order to be able to contribute to the economic development. However this need not be so. Space for creativity could be provided to advantage in any curriculum at the required level whether in humanities, science, medicine, agriculture, engineering or any other. Further creativity and problem solving ability are complementary characteristics. A creative doctor would be a better doctor and so it is with other professions and jobs. A creative person is better equipped to solve life’s problems including personal problems.
Universities in the larger context have an obligation to make their products more sensitive to the needs and attitudes of their fellow beings. They should be able to appreciate human weaknesses and strengths and respond in a positive manner. They should be able to accommodate different points of view. If this characteristic is lacking maximum use of the other two abilities, problem solving and creativity, cannot be satisfactorily achieved. Sensitivity is one of the natural good human qualities which everybody posses in varying degree and which could be developed to a desirable level by means of education and exposure to humanizing experiences. Learning subjects like humanities and exposure to good literature, drama, music and art is one way of achieving this objective. Studies carried out in the medical faculties in the USA have found that introduction of humanities in small modules into the medical curriculum could result in making the doctors more sensitive to their patients’ needs. It was found that such a measure could positively reduce the brutalisation that may result from following an isolated, compartmentalised curriculum that focuses on human morbidity.
University student violence in general and "ragging" in particular could be a phenomenon that has its origins in the insensitivity that prevails among the present younger generation. Brutalising nature of the whole education system must take the blame for this sad state of affairs. True, there is a political element in the causation of student violence but it is the insensitive mind set that makes the individual student vulnerable to the political manipulations and the consequent conviction that violence is the means that could bring about change. They are insensitive to the agony that the victim of their ragging undergoes or the damage they cause to state property or the indignity they cause to the university dons.
University curricula in Sri Lanka at present are compartmentalised and fragmented into areas called science, arts, commerce and so on. One has to fit into one of these water tight compartments irrespective of ones talents and desires. If one has an interest for instance in both science and arts, or say geography and mathematics, history and music or any other selection of subjects one should be able to expect the university to provide facilities to pursue such an interest as far as possible. But in our system this is not possible. One should be able to read for a degree in say mathematics and literature. The fostering of such a combination of talents by the university may result in the birth of a mathematician with deep sensitivity and creativity. Even the professional courses such as medicine and engineering could have modules in humanities, music, literature, drama etc. which would help in making the student appreciative of the wider world and better trained for life. Moreover it would remove to a great extent the dehumanizing factor that could lurk in a narrow based education.
The malady however does not lie entirely within the university system. The school education must take its share of the blame. After all the raw material for university education is produced in the schools. Fragmentation and compartmentalization start in the schools. Separation into science, arts and commerce streams which starts at Advanced Level continues into the university and other higher education systems. The rot sets in even before that. From year one in school a child should be given the freedom, the encouragement and the facilities for the development of his or her inherent talents, natural thirst for knowledge, inborn creativity, flair and imagination. Instead the child is burdened with an excessive quantity of "learning" which blunts the more desirable inborn qualities such as self learning ability, creativity etc. The child does not enjoy his or her childhood but is forced to learn things he may not like. At the fifth year in school the child is induced to take a highly competitive examination that has a vast syllabus. Tuition classes start very early in the child’s life and this goes on until the A Level exam is taken. If the child survives the ordeal without damage to his or her mental state he may enter the university but is he prepared for a university education in the true sense of the word. This young person has very little thirst for learning which he considers to be a burden, his creative talents are blunted, he has inadequate problem solving ability and he may not be very sensitive of the feelings of his fellow beings. What is worse he may be selfish, aggressive, and competitive to an extreme degree. School education seems to be designed to facilitate the development of undesirable human qualities.
Thus the young person who enters the university expects everything to be taught to him. His horizon is very narrow and his interests are also limited. He is not looking for opportunities to express his creativity, or practice his problem solving ability for they are not adequately developed. I suppose a university can do nothing more than what it does given the material it has to deal with.
Presidential Committee says officers to blame for GCE A/L results mess up
Failed to avoid the causes
January 14, 2012, 12:00 pm , The Island.by Dasun Edirisinghe
The committee appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to inquire into the GCE (A/L) results mess up, has blamed officers responsible saying they had not taken adequate steps to avoid the causes that contributed to the error.
The committee has recommended the need to take several steps to enhance the capacity of the Examination Department to handle technology related activities and as an immediate measure, the services of a consultant be obtained to provide advice of technology related matters.
The error in calculating the district rankings had been caused at the last stage (processing stage) and not at the point of entering data, it says.
The committee has also recommended that matters relating software improvements should be examined. In particular, every revision of a computer programme and data processing, should be double checked, verified and validated before implementation.
It blamed officers responsible saying they had not taken adequate steps to avoid the causes that contributed to the error,
"An independent process Audit should be carried out to provide for continuous improvements of the entire examination process," it suggested adding it should ideally be carried out by the Ministry of Education.
Inquiries conducted regarding the specific appeals made by the candidates in response to the public call by the committee have been examined. The committee has found that there were no processing errors in those results.
The committee also proposed a special help line should be established to receive all the complaints and they should be addressed by
the department with extra concern caution to restore the credibility of the department.
It is must provide cadre and financial requirements to the Examinations Department to ensure optimum efficiency, the committee further recommended.
However, it says that the University Grants Commission should decide the Z score formula after careful and wide consultations.
The committee, chaired by the Secretary to the Ministry of Technological Research, Ms. Dhara Wijetillake, handed over its report to President Rajapaksa on Jan. 11. The other members of the committee were Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo Prof. Kshanika Hirimburegama, Vice Chancellor of the Moratuwa University, Prof. Ananda Jayawardena, Vice Chancellor of the Uva Wellassa University, Prof. Ranjith Premalal de Silva and Principal of the Royal College Upali Gunasekera.
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