FUTA and Free Education in Sri Lanka: Question of Social Justice and Democracy in an Oligarchy
Photo courtesy Vikalpa
The results of the so-called ‘mother’s examination’, or the year five
scholarship examination of this year, have once again sturdily testified
for the importance and significance of preservation and continuation of
the free education system of this country. The two students who have
achieved the first places hail from two divergently opposing social
classes, but the duo being educated in the same, state sponsored, free
education system. When the boy student from socially affluent strata,
attending a high ranked school scored the highest marks, the girl
student attending a low ranked, poorly facilitated rural school could
produce the same result under more difficult conditions than the
conditions the boy student had to face. Both of them have made their
schools proud and won the hearts and mind of the people equally; but if
it weren’t for the free education would the underprivileged rural
student ever have got that opportunity to be equal among unequal? I have
just contemplated on this case at the beginning of this piece, because
the narrow attempts at labeling the struggle being launched by
Federation of University Teachers’ Association (FUTA) as a conspiracy
against the government or its Ministers of Education are rightly
debunked with this story. Further, the success story of the girl student
of Thalathu Oya Kanishta Vidyalaya speaks volumes of why we should protect free education for further assuring and protecting social justice of this country.
Unfortunately, the much clichéd patriotism that this government
continues to preach long after the end of war never distinguished the raison d’être behind
the system of free, state sponsored education that has historically
guided Sri Lankan society, after the independence, towards a more
equitable and just society. The pillars of social justice, democracy and
equality have remained the immaculate tenets of the philosophy behind a
free education system and visionaries like C.W.W.Kannangara could
correctly perceive the historical importance of this system in founding a
united nation. However, the oligarchic and authoritarian tendencies
that the post- war Sri Lanka has begun to experience currently has made
the well-wishers of this majoritarian system keep their mouths shut and
remain silent, still having some remorse towards a regime which
violently defeated the LTTE. Conversely, the most educated strata of
this country, the University academics, under FUTA Leadership, have
displayed their character and power of knowledge and sent warning
signals to the ruling regime that it has to conform to the norms of
social juice and democracy by preserving the state education system
Now, three months have passed since the FUTA started a continuous
protest campaign demanding, mainly, a 6% allocation of GDP on Education
and autonomy of education sector. The progress of the FUTA protest
campaign has flourished amazingly during the last couple of months and
disproportionate to the response from the government. And today, it
seems, the FUTA struggle is reviving an unresponsive opposition and
attracting the support of left parties while converting its struggle
into a large scale national and social movement of people from various
sections of the society, who have realized the value of free education
for social justice and democratic governance.
The five day foot-walk that FUTA begun at Galle, beating rough rainy
weather conditions, now has culminated in a far stretched chain of
people united for one goal, the freedom of education sector from the
clutches of neo-liberal reforms that the current education ministers
have jointly moved to introduce in the school and the University system.
The FUTA has shown that it is determined to save the ill-fated
education sector from the mismanagement and bad governance of the
politicos and bureaucrats who are advised by a bunch of so-called
intellectuals upholding neo-liberal policies. The very calculated
process of making free education a marketable commodity, a process that
would ultimately deprive this country’s poor people the opportunity to
climb the ladder of social status through justifiable means, is now
being battled at various fronts by University teachers, students,
opposition parties, civil society movements and average masses. The
message has reached the government that, despite its huge success at
every election largely depending on the accomplishment at the
battlefield, its public policy is what mostly hated by the educated
sections and the civil society which raise concerns on behalf of the
large sections of underprivileged masses of this country.
The Ministers, bureaucrats and their advisors who have upheld the
virtues of righteous management of the education would have never
imagined that the FUTA struggle would ever grow into a large social
movement filling the vacuum of a responsible opposition in this country.
The ideas of social justice and democracy are thoroughly etched in FUTA
demands that have transcended the mere bargain for salary increases
that not only University teachers but all the other sectors of
employment are currently in urgent need in the face of sky rocketing
cost of living.
The government which largely amassed the support of masses of rural and
semi-urban Sinhala-Buddhist sections has not carefully analyzed the
needs and wants of the very people which elected it into power in many
times. Free education and free health have been the two major pillars
that have historically uplifted the rural masses and poor of this
country and paved the way for them to set their foot in a competitive
open economic environment. The welfare character of the state showed its
declining phase in the post-war era, and it seems that government was
misconceived of the importance of further preserving the welfare image
and embarked on an illiberal development process that only looked at the
requirements of the Multinational Co-operations and wealthy classes.
The ground reality of a war torn country was not carefully realized by
the government and it suddenly attempted to close down all the access
points open for average masses to participate in and benefit from the
welfare-oriented state.
Today, FUTA’s long march has forced the government to think of what it
has been doing in the name of large scale economic development and
infrastructure building, allegedly accruing huge margins of profit for
those undertake the contracts of such projects. While the state
education and health sectors that historically founded strong pillars of
equitable social justice and democratic governance were crumbling the
government has tried to cherish the dream of making Sri Lanka the
‘wonder of Asia’. No wonder that this could be a noble dream of
visionary thinking, but if it is to be realized while the social
identity that Sri Lanka inherited from free education of welfare state
is left for destruction, the future that this regime is making will not
belong to the ordinary citizen of this country.
The path of neo-liberal development has been proved to be a failure in
terms of assuring social justice, and democratic governance for larger
masses of many states in the world and, unfortunately, the war ravaged
Sri Lanka is mistakenly taking that path with a strong determination of
ending the era of welfare state. The FUTA struggle and the ever growing
support for it, has suggested that neo-liberal path would only lead this
state to a tragedy of social unrest and authoritarianism, once again
making the ordinary citizens bear the brunt of waging rebellions in the
name of eliminating social inequality with class hatred. If the
government correctly reads the message that FUTA is sending it with long
marches, and many more to come in future, the future of this country
would be safe with democracy and social justice guiding the way forward.
