FUTA strike: Some issues
October 22, 2012, 7:01 pm
By Eric J. de Silva, The Island
The university teachers’
strike that the government told us had been called off has only been
suspended according to FUTA, with every prospect of being resumed - a
temporary truce with all the forebodings it has for those who want the
universities to function without disruption.
The FUTA
strike, which began when negotiations with government for a salary
increase for university teachers broke down, took a totally different
turn when FUTA deftly tagged on a demand for a 6% allocation of GDP for
education to obtain wider support for their struggle. This they
succeeded in doing with teachers’ unions and other groups rallying
round the 6% banner though many of them did not have a clue as to what
it really meant in rupees and cents (if cents do matter)! The fact that
the FUTA move paid ample dividends was seen in the haste in which not
only mainstream political parties but also nondescript (no insult
meant) politicians in search of an identity jumped the FUTA bandwagon
as described in a piece I wrote to The Island on 4/10/12 (Jumping the
FUTA bandwagon).
6% of GDP for education
Spokespersons
for FUTA insisted that the target of ‘6% of GDP for education’ should
be reached by 2015 as a Millennium Development Goal which Sri Lanka had
subscribed to in 2000, as a member of the United Nations. However,
neither the report prepared by the World Bank in 2005 titled ‘Attaining
the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka’ (a copy of which I found
in my bookshelves) nor relevant websites I checked with gave any
indication of there being a MDG to that effect. The Millennium
Development Goals subscribed to by 193 member nations of UN and 23
international organizations in 2000 simply read as follows:
1. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieving universal primary education
3. Promoting gender equality and empowering women
4. Reducing child mortality rates
5. Improving maternal health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensuring environmental sustainability, and
8. Developing a global partnership for development.
It
will be observed that these goals are more oriented towards
eradicating illiteracy, alleviating poverty, improving health,
empowering women and protecting the environment. As far as education is
concerned, only primary education receives specific mention –
obviously as a means of eradicating illiteracy. A meeting held in
September 2010 at UN Headquarters in New York had conducted a progress
review and concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to
achieve the above goals by 2015, the targeted year. Thus the FUTA claim
does not hold water, unless they can produce documentary evidence to
the effect that there is, in fact, a Millennium Development Goal
requiring member counties to allocate 6% of GDP for education.
Much
has been said about the remark made by the renowned Pakistani
scientist, educator, policy maker and former Minister of Science and
Technology Prof. Atta ur Rahman about being in a position to advise
President Rajapakse as to how 6% of GDP could be allocated to
education, if requested to do so. He made this remark in answer to a
question posed to him after the excellent lecture he delivered at the
SLAAS auditorium on 27th September while the FUTA march from Galle was
wending its way to Colombo. There was thunderous applause when he said
this, and I too joined in it due to the exhilarating effect his speech
had on me! I was naturally curious to know how much Pakistan spends on
education and, when I checked the figures later, I found that their
expenditure had been 1.9% in 2001, 2.9% in 2009 and 2.4% in 2010. These
figures are obviously higher than ours, but nowhere near the 6% mark
which had by then virtually become the FUTA trade mark!
What
most people forget is that, as Prof. Rahman himself was quick to point
out, Pakistan has over the years given greater attention to the apex
of the pyramid (higher education) rather than to the base (primary and
secondary education). As a result, despite their advances in the area of
science and technology which he so graphically described, Pakistan
remains among the Low Human Development Countries in terms of the Human
Development Index occupying the 145th place out of 187 countries (with
50% of the population deprived of basic necessities of education and
health) while Sri Lanka is among the Medium Human Development Countries
occupying the 97th place, clearly showing that we have chosen one path
and they another!
Pakistan
In this connection,
my memory takes me back to a visit I made to Pakistan in the mid
eighties when I was invited to join a Sri Lankan delegation led by the
then Education Minister with the Secretary of the Ministry and a couple
of others in the team. (I was working then as head of a Unesco Project
in Sri Lanka). At a brief meeting the delegation had with Prime
Minister Junejo (General Zia ul Huq was President at the time) which
was more in the nature of a courtesy call than a substantive
discussion, he was full of praise for the high standards of literacy
(87% in SL as against 30% in Pakistan in 1985) that we had achieved
thanks to our school system, and said that Pakistan had a lot to learn
from us. He, however, inquired whether we did not see a link between it
and youth unrest and the insurrection that followed due to employment
opportunities not keeping pace with rising expectations that education
brings along with it. While agreeing that there certainly was, we also
brought to his attention the benefits that a high rate of literacy had
brought about in areas such as health, women’s empowerment and the
spread of family planning.
Developments in Pakistan since
then are too well-known to bear repetition here. Despite Pakistan’s
significant achievements in the field of higher education, science and
technology that Prof. Rahman referred to, Pakistan’s present literacy
rate of 58% remains among the lowest in the world (while ours is around
94%), and keeping half the population illiterate has not helped to
keep violence and terrorism out of the way. What we all know is that
these have taken such a heavy toll on Pakistan that their cricket team
has to go outside Pakistan’s national boundaries to Abu Dhabi or Dubai
to play their matches against visiting teams following the violent
attack mounted on our cricketers a few years back, showing that there
is no relationship between literacy and insurgent activities.
Need for more funds
It
is beyond question that our education sector needs more funds if we are
to adequately meet present needs as well as challenges that lie ahead.
But funds alone are not sufficient without a proper policy framework,
well formulated projects, proper implementation strategies and a
competent and professional administration capable of getting the job
done, none of which we can claim to have today. Usvatte (The Island
22/8/12) has pointed out that we spend 121 billion rupees per year on
education (equivalent to 2% of GDP) at present and that tripling this
amount to reach the 6% target would mean an additional 242 billion
rupees of government expenditure. Even if, by some miracle, the
government is able to considerably increase the government budget for
education annually so as to reach the 6% target by 2015, it is my
contention that we will not be able to spend so much, unless ‘spending’
means running through the money on ill-conceived projects and
hare-brained schemes providing, in the process, ample opportunity for
predators of all sorts to line their pockets at public expense. This,
surely, is not what we want!
The
Federation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) has decided to
join the protest march organized by teachers’ and principals’ trade
unions to be held on the 24th say reports.
