Monday, 22 October 2012 00:00, DailymirrorBy Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
The Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) and the Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) in Sri Lanka have been on a long campaign to “protect free education”. I will be dealing with both the semantics and substance of “free education” in Sri Lanka in this think piece.
The fundamental truth is that NOTHING IS FREE IN THE WORLD of human beings. Every single citizen of Sri Lanka pays several taxes to the government for the provision of public goods (for e.g.infrastructure) and services (for e.g. education, health). Since between 70-75% of the total revenue of the government accrues from indirect (consumption) taxes every single citizen pays various taxes to the government daily during their entire lifetime. Therefore, every household pays for the education of their children albeit indirectly through the payment of direct (income) and indirect taxes to the government.
Besides, there is rampant corruption in admissions to popular schools throughout Sri Lanka which makes a mockery of the free education system because of payment of bribe to secure admission. In addition, almost all the parents pay to send their children to private tutories from grade one onwards because most schools in the country hardly teach anything worthwhile despite being nominally free-of-cost.
According to the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2009/10, out of the total non-food expenditure of the households, the average monthly household expenditure on education amounts to 5.6% of the total (following personal care & health expenses 41.5%, housing 19.1%, transport 12.8%, and fuel & light 7.1%). The average monthly household expenditure on education is higher than on clothing, textiles & footwear (5.0%) and Communication (4.2%), for example. With expenditures on education and health consuming 47% of the total household expenditures, how legitimate is the claim of “free” education and health in Sri Lanka?
The public-funded universities and other public-funded tertiary educational institutions produce mostly UNEMPLOYABLE graduates. Barring Engineering and Medical degrees, most degrees awarded by the fifteen universities in Sri Lanka are not worthy of recognition. Public universities in Sri Lanka are infested with under-qualified and abysmal quality teachers; especially in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, disciplines which together accommodate more than two-third of the total university student population in the country. The fact that many university teachers in Sri Lanka send their children abroad for higher education is a testimony to the abysmal quality of university education in Sri Lanka.
According to the HIES 2009/10, only 14.7% of the population has passed the G.C.E. O/L examination and another 11.2% has passed the G.C.E. A/L examination or beyond, out of which little over 1% have an undergraduate degree or above. Hence, in total only 26% of the population has passed the G.C.E. O/L or beyond in the country. In other words, the eulogised free education in Sri Lanka has failed three-quarters of the population. The fact that many members of parliament (from all political parties) send their children to the fee-levying private ‘international schools’ is a testimony to the abysmal quality of school education (private and public) in the country.
" Almost all the parents pay to send their children to private tutories from grade one onwards because most schools in the country hardly teach anything worthwhile "
According to a Ministry of Education source, even the foregoing pass rates are achieved by lowering the pass mark at the G.C.E. O/L examination to 30 in the past five-years or so from the historic pass mark of 40 in order to fulfill a commitment made in the “Mahinda Chinthana”. Such fudging of numbers as a way of attaining policy goals and targets has become a hallmark of the Rajapaksa regime and perhaps their policy instrument to make Sri Lanka a “knowledge hub” in Asia. Besides, a significant part of the 1% of the population with degrees is unemployed or under-employed because of the poor quality of their degree. Is this the result envisioned by the champion of free education Mr. C.W.W. Kannangara when he introduced free education in 1945?
The FUTA and IUSF may contend that the foregoing pathetic results of our free education system are due to under-funding. However, I would contend that with similar or lesser amount of public funding many other developing countries have achieved much better results than Sri Lanka has. Money is a necessary but insufficient ingredient for attaining quality education both at the school and higher education levels.
It is high time for educationists to do soul-searching regarding the outcome of the sixty seven years (1945-2012) of free education. The entire education sector in Sri Lanka, from cradle to crematorium (lifelong learning), has been in crisis for a very long time. The low salaries of the school and university teachers and the declining share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) devoted to the education sector are minor problems in my view. The major problems afflicting the education sector in my view are (a) dated and irrelevant curriculum (b) predominance of culture of teaching (spoon feeding) as opposed to culture of learning (c) lack of performance-based remuneration for teachers which has resulted in low-level of motivation (d) nepotism and favouritism in awarding scholarships for postgraduate study abroad to academics, and (e) ragging of students by students and sexual exploitation of female students by male teachers which are endemic in further and higher education institutions. The Universities’ Grants Commission (UGC) and individual universities have the legal right and responsibility to rectify the foregoing core problems (except the common salary scale) without government interference. What has FUTA done to address these problems?
In this ground reality, what is the logical, moral, or rational economic imperative for the demand to allocate 6% of the GDP for the education sector when only 1% of the population has earned a degree (that too of unemployable quality)? In my view, even if the government allocates 10% of the GDP for education, the quality of our university graduates and teachers will not improve unless and until the aforementioned core issues afflicting the education sector are corrected. Thus, any resolution of the salary issue should be tied to resolving severe qualitative problems highlighted above. Is the holy grail of “free education” in Sri Lanka worthy of protection?
Education will follow. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan Ph.D. (Wales), M.Sc. (Bristol), M.Sc. (Salford), B.A. (Hons) (Delhi) hails from Point Pedro, Northern Sri Lanka, and a Development Economist by profession and the Principal Researcher of the Point Pedro Institute of Development (PPID). He has been an Endeavour Research Fellow at the Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar at the George Washington University (Washington D.C, USA.) as well. sarvi@pointpedro.org
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