Expansion of Sri Lankan university system: Good if properly done

May 15, 2014, 12:00 pm ,

Alexander Hall, Princeton University
by S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

Nostalgia as Foreign

Universities Enter

Recently Prof. Gananath Obeyesekere of Princeton University – hailing from times when our students became professors at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia and the like – penned an impassioned nostalgic essay on saving our university system. It is extremely unlikely that Sri Lankan graduates today would reach the heights that these men did. Perhaps his mind was spurred by recent news which I read with as much excitement as trepidation of some 20 foreign universities moving into Sri Lanka soon (Xinhua News, April 23, 2014). The University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) already has approval. India’s Manipal, Singapore’s Raffles and Sri Lanka Telecom have sought approval.

Education for the Sake of Education

I am excited because education is for the sake of education. A properly educated citizenry will be alive to what is going on in the rest of the world. It will think, and think critically as well as fairly. It cannot be taken for granted. I cannot understand why those who take children’s education and women’s education as a right suddenly talk about there being no need for university education if there are no jobs for graduates. We surely would not demand guaranteed employment opportunities before a child is schooled. Education at whatever level is to make a wholesome person. Employment though nice to have as a corollary, is indeed secondary. It is said that when western Jews with PhDs migrated to Israel and tended sheep or drove taxis for want of jobs, they did their work innovatively rather than as ordinary others did and brought a lot to the country: development

Value of Language Skills

alongside Subject Skills

A problem with our system, on a scale of 1 to 10, is that we have academics joining the system who are above 9 in their subjects, but below 3 in English. Such academics cannot set an unambiguous exam paper, correspond with an outside scholar, or write a book or their research results for publication in English, today’s language of the academe.

I have had Sri Lankan engineering students doing so well that they are out of the scale in GRE Quantitative IQ scores, but my university has refused me permission to take them because they do not have minimum marks in the verbal section. Such students I know get into programmes in countries where verbal skills are not stressed or into US universities because a faculty member insisted on admission as necessary for his work. Such students do brilliant research and graduate because of supervisor help in writing, but cannot hold a faculty position in the West because of their inability to write. On the other hand, most western academics might be 7 or 8 on both the quantitative and verbal scales. That is enough to succeed. Success needs a balanced profile, good in the subject and the language. One without the other is no good. Good in both is all right; good in one and excellence in the other or excellence in both is better. Horrible even in one, is sure academic death. We in Sri Lanka do not get this.

In the world of work too, a good part besides thinking for decision making, is writing. So long as our graduates stay on in Sri Lanka and write in Tamil or Sinhalese, they can do well. The watershed in English skills in Sri Lanka was in the early 1970s when the essay and précis at the O. Levels gave way to fill in the blanks – that is no training in sentence formation. I see a crisis looming as English language skills collapse more with the retirement of the last few trained in writing in the old O.Levels. Those institutions presently functioning in English – universities, newspapers, the highest courts for example – will need to switch to the vernacular, keeping the country out of touch with the rest of the world. In the 1960s my father had a national newspaper home delivered so that we would read and pick up the language. (The Provincial Edition would arrive at the Jaffna Railway Station by 6 AM and we would have the newspaper at home by 7 AM, in time to read at least the sports pages before school). Today if we relied on that newspaper, the little English we know would go away. We sometimes need to deal with judgments from the highest courts tending to such bad grammar that they are useless because they bear multiple interpretations. In the alternative we would have to rely increasingly on Colombo people to do these top echelon jobs, thereby fracturing the country more.

Teaching in English

The coming of the foreign universities – which necessarily will strictly teach in English – will increase the proportion of Sri Lankans functioning in English and ameliorate the problem. This will address the problem of so called English medium courses where a lot of the lecturing and speaking is in Tamil or Sinhalese. At Peradeniya’s Engineering, a Head taught in Sinhalese and told Tamil students to ask their Sinhalese friends! As such Tamils rarely asked for that department’s attractive specialization. Jaffna now has Sinhalese students and that is a blessing in disguise because lectures have to be completely in English as claimed.

To be sure the universities that are coming are not Cambridge from England, or IIT from India or NUS from Singapore, but relatively mediocre universities that are unable to get students in their own countries – remember, good wares need no advertising. But they will produce people who can be rated 7/7 or even 5/5 in quantitative and verbal skills and can do a better job than one with 9+/3 and cannot do any job. Thinking people must feel as excited as I am that the people of Sri Lanka will have their minds opened up simply through the ability to read international literature.

Plight of Local University Students

The Xinhua report further states "moves by the government to establish private universities have received severe criticism from student unions and university teachers based at public universities who contend state-run universities will be neglected by the government." This is where my trepidation comes in because it is true. During the FUTA strike the government showed an unwillingness to pay PhD holding faculty more reasonable salaries and a readiness to lie. The report goes on to say that "critics fear that once private universities are established, poor but highly talented youth will be limited to public universities where they may not have access to recognized degrees and lucrative jobs." I agree that poor but talented youth will be limited to public universities. But it is not necessarily true their degrees will not be recognized. They can be superior.

As Colonial Secretary J.E. Tennent in his book in the 1850s said, "The knowledge exhibited by the pupils was astonishing and it is no exaggeration to say that in the course of instruction and in the success of the system for communicating it, the collegiate institution of Batticotta [Vaddukoddai] is entitled to rank with many an European University." Batticotta had only cadjan roofs but committed, educated teachers – often 1 or 2 missionaries with locals trained by them.

We need good teachers. The foreign universities usually do not bring their own staff (except 1 or 2 on brief visits) and draw from the state universities. More often than not these local recruits keep their state university jobs for a base salary and are hourly paid as visitors at the foreign university. That is their commitment to the local university which is minimal and any spare time they have for scholarship is diverted to visiting lectures. The problem already in our universities is good staff. The teaching standards of certain lecturers at the new engineering faculty at South Eastern University are said to be hopelessly poor. The new faculty in Jaffna is competing for staff from the same fixed pool. It is obvious that the new universities will attract the few good teachers away from the teacher-starved universities – unless the government changes course.

The contention that the rich will be able to buy education when the poor cannot is true indeed but not correct as an argument. For that is how our society is structured – the rich buy Mercedes Benzes, go on foreign holidays, eat better food and all that while the poor cannot. Why single out education?

Marble buildings or well-paid teachers?

Instead of investing in marble buildings which cost millions and serve mainly for vain opening ceremonies by politicians, the state should pay qualified lecturers market salaries and prohibit outside work. We all love to teach bright students and find it unpleasant to teach incapable students in class who are there because of their ability to pay. Sometimes teaching in not so highly rated universities in the US I have had to water down my courses and pass almost everyone because the assumption is that one who is admitted has an unwritten contract that he has the wherewithal to pass. On the other hand teaching at elite institutions I have sometimes felt that the students are better than I and can take any academic stress I can dish out as tough assignments and exam questions. Teaching becomes a pleasure. In these circumstances, I believe that the good staff in our state universities will not desert their able students just for the nice facilities and posh environment at any new university that might come. It is when the private universities pay a lot more that we will be pressured to move by family considerations. Indeed in the US the best ranked universities are often state universities (like University of California at Berkeley, Michigan and Illinois at Urbana Champaign) that pay a lot more than many private universities and have little interference from the government except in the appointment of trustees. The trustees are truly accomplished and left free to do their work (except when there is a crisis) unlike our council members. The good students combined with well-paid, satisfied, motivated staff will make the universities excellent in the Batticotta model.

The Danger to State Universities:

The Government

The only danger to these universities is from the government. As a moving letter from Jaffna University Science Teachers’ Association, signed by its very brave president, Dr. J.P. Jeyadevan, notes:

• Dean/Arts Prof. Sivanathan, practically the only member of the Council to oppose the recent recruitment as Computer Application Assistants a list of unqualified persons at the behest of a political party [which we know to be the EPDP] that virtually runs the Council, has received death threats.

• Political appointments add another dimension to surveillance and the appearance of threatening posters, as well as favouritism in academic appointments.

• Spying and intrigue inhibit collegiality and the open exchange of ideas. The university is not a safe place for the exercise of freedom of speech, dissent and debate.

• Lecturers are afraid to teach known facts.

• Students are afraid to attend classes.

• Rehabilitated ex-combatants are never allowed to pursue their studies but are continually detained, pressured, and made into informers.

Our students are therefore naturally cynical about a government that ruins our universities and then claims to improve education through private universities. Let the government stop meddling and appoint the best to our universities instead of favourites. Let it fill the Councils with men and women of integrity and let them be free to guide the universities instead of telling them how to vote as government stooges.

State university students, the best of our children, will then get the best education free. The others will have private universities that give them too a valuable training. And students will not riot against private universities and see them as a boon.