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.
