A Way forward

Global higher education system and the proposed knowledge hub for Sri Lanka:

November 22, 2012, 12:00 pm , the island


Speech delivered by Prof. Gamini Samaranayake, Chairman, University Grants Commission, at the AGMof the Sri Lanka Quantity Surveyors Association in Dubai

Continued from Midweek Review

on 21. 12. 2012

To accommodate an increased demand of university education ad hoc measures such as creating another Faculty of Arts in Colombo and a Faculty of Science in Peradeniya was taken by the government. By 1970 the number of universities increased to five and by 1978 there were seven universities in the country. The rest were established after 1994.

The number of students entering higher education thus increased form 1612 in 1948, to 5000 in 1959, to about 14,000 in 1970 and 17, 449 student enrolments in 1978. By 1988/89 there were 29,781 students internally in university education. At present, 80, 000 students are in universities. Annually about 13,000 internal graduates pass out from universities and more than 50 percent of them are from the Arts and management streams. The output of external graduates is around 6,500 and the Open University too has an output of about 500 per year. Thirty years ago 70 percent of the student population was admitted to the faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities. In addition, since 1962, there has been a system of external examinations in university education and almost 200,000 students are registered with the eleven universities in the country.

Currently, there are 14 conventional universities, three campuses, one open university, 9 undergraduate and 7 post-graduate institutes, 9 degree awarding institutes under the purview of the University Grants Commission. Besides, there are two religious universities under the Ministry of Higher Education. There is one university under the Ministry of Defense, and one under the Ministry of Vocational Training. Thus, there are 19, universities have been engaged providing higher education under the principle of Free Education since 1945. Almost, 80,000 students are studying at our universities. Another, more than 150, 000 students are there as external students. The exact statistics are not available regarding the number of students in universities overseas. According to estimates of the UGC nearly 8000-10000 students leave the country for higher education annually.

Issues and Challenges

The biggest challenge facing our university education is offering equity in access and quality of education. In 2010, 54,000 have applied for 22,000 placements at our universities. The Gross Enrollment Rate (GER) the ratio of students enrolled in higher education to the size of the age cohort between 18 to 24 is close upon 16 per cent. The UGC is planning to increase the GER up to 20 per cent in 2016 and 30 per cent in 2020. It is essential to have the GER to level of 20 per cent to move to a knowledge economy.

The challenge before us is to increase access to higher education while improving the quality of education to suit the demands of the new millennium. The answer lies in changing the traditional model of teaching and learning measured by where we study and what we learned. New pressures such as alignment of industry and the demand of the workforce, the move to mass education, a geographically fluid workforce and mass communication have exacerbated the need to move away from rote learning to competency based education. Therefore, we need to redefine our programs to provide competencies for a new generation of learners.

The state monopoly in higher education has come under increasing pressure as the state has not been able to keep pace with the demand for higher education and diversify and increase access and quality at the same time. We at the UGC are grappling with issues of expanding access and quality and it is well known fact that the state cannot allocate the financial resources required to meet these challenges and neither can the country find the human resources required to increase quality.

Given the rapidly changing context globally as well as within Sri Lanka the Ministry of Higher Education and the UGC are compelled to rethink its policies and strategies and as I said before forecast change and plan for change. If not we are left behind and the forces of change will continue in an unplanned and unregulated environment which is not conducive for the development of the country. Establishing Sri Lanka as a knowledge hub in South Asia is one such that is being explored.

Knowledge Hub

A Knowledge Hub is broadly defined as a designated region intended to attract foreign investment, retain local students, build a regional reputation by providing access to high-quality education and training for both international and domestic students, and create a knowledge-based economy. A knowledge hub is concerned with the process of building up a country’s capacity to better integrate it with the world’s increasing knowledge based economy, while simultaneously exploring policy options that have the potential to enhance economic growth. An education hub can include different combinations of domestic/international institutions, branch campuses, and foreign partnership, within the region. The main functions of hubs are to generate, apply, transfer, and disseminate knowledge.

The concept of a knowledge hub for Sri Lanka was proposed by HE the President Mahinda Rajapaksa through his policy document during the presidential election in 2009. It is stated that Sri Lanka will "develop youth who can see the world over the horizon". "We have the opportunity to make this country a knowledge hub within the South Asia region. I will develop and implement an operational plan to make this country a local and international training centre for knowledge".

The Ministry of Higher Education is grappling with the empirical implications of translating this promise into reality. The Ministry has invited foreign universities to set up campuses to provide a more diversified higher Education programme to increase access for local students and to attract students from overseas to study in Sri Lanka. Just as in Singapore Sri Lanka’s strategy is to piggy- back on internationally renowned universities so that the process is cost effective and mutually beneficial. Furthermore, it is planned that 10 branch campuses of "world class" universities would be established by 2013. The Knowledge Hub Agenda has given greater prominence especially to the fields of Science and Technology, Information and Communication Technology, Skills Development, and Research and Development in Applied Sciences.

Malaysia is the first country in Asia that has strategically established itself as a knowledge hub admitting 100,000 overseas students, although the university education in Malaysia was introduced far later than Sri Lanka. It has a clear strategy to consolidate as an international hub for post graduate studies. Another successful hub is Hong Kong although its catchment area is more Southeast Asia than South Asia. Other countries such as India, Singapore, Viet Nam and Thailand are aspiring to establish a knowledge hub in their respective regions. India, attracts a 100,000 students annually while Hong Kong, attracts 5,823, China 162,895, and Singapore 72,000 overseas students annually. Sri Lanka has a projected target of attracting 10,000 foreign students by 2014 which would increase to 100,000 by 2020.

Advantages

Sri Lanka enjoys several advantages to develop into an education hub. First, of all the ever increasing demand for higher education in the country is an impetus for growth and advancement. Annually, well over 250,000 students sit for the Advanced Level Examination and half of them are qualified for university education. However, only 22,000 are able to enter university education in the country. Of them, 9000 enroll in vocational training through 12 Advanced Technological Institutes, 20,000 enroll at the Open University, 8000, access overseas education, 20,000 register as external candidates while 9000 are studying for a foreign degree via cross border institutes. Nearly, 60,000 students are looking for alternative higher education locally.

To be Continued on Saturday

Pera U’grads protest against ‘leadership’ training

November 22, 2012, 9:35 pm , the island

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Undergraduates, of the Peradeniya University, protested at the Galaha Junction, blocking the Colombo – Kandy road, against the leadership training programme for university freshers.

President of the Students’ Council Janaka Madushan told The Island that the government was now putting new undergraduates through military training claiming it was leadership training.

He said that several students were injured during last year’s training, but the government did not compensate them.

"We marched from the University to Galaha junction and held a demonstration there," Madushan said adding that they would continue this protest with other universities joining in.

The Higher Education Ministry had planned to commence the leadership training programme, for the next batch of university entrants on Dec. 27 at 25 centres countrywide.

Secretary to the Higher Education Ministry Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne said that this year, the leadership training programme had to be postponed twice, in May and November, due to university teachers demanding that it be delayed until they submitted their recommendations.

"We planned to start this year’s leadership training programme in three batches consisting of 9,000 students each," Dr. Navaratne said.

He added that this time 26,721 students would undergo the leadership training programme in military and police establishments countrywide from Dec. 27 to Jan. 13.

"We consulted Vice Chancellors and faculty boards of all universities before deciding on the dates for this year’s programme," Dr. Navaratne said adding they made several changes in the programme following VCs comments.

UGC says ‘no pay’ circular stands
FUTA members already paid for strike days

November 22, 2012, 10:59 pm , The Island

by Dasun Edirisinghe

Although the UGC has decided against abolishing the controversial circular No. 890 of June 7, 2007, which deprives university employees of their salaries during a strike, the university teachers, who struck work for one hundred days at a stretch, from July 04, have already been paid their salaries for that period, The Island learns.

The university teachers were paid their salaries for more than three months, in spite of their strike, in keeping with an agreement between the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) and Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa.

The abolition of eight circulars including No. 890 is one of FUTA’s main demands.

FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, contacted for comment, confirmed that university teachers had already been paid their salaries for the period between July 04 and Oct. 12.

Asked whether the FUTA would object to the UGC’s decision to retain the controversial circular, Dr. Dewasiri said a decision on that matter would be taken at the FUTA Executive Committee meeting scheduled for Nov. 29.

Having suspended the 100-day-long strike, consequent to an agreement with the government, the FUTA said that the government would have to face the consequences if the latter failed to honour its promises.

Universities in crisis - Kabir

Security officer paid Rs. 93,000 but a don only Rs. 45,000

November 22, 2012, 7:03 am , The Island

by Saman Indrajith

Former Tertiary Education Minister, UNP Parliamentarian Kabir Hashim, yesterday charged that the University Grants Commission (UGC) was interfering with everything in the higher education sector but had failed to perform the duties entrusted to it.

Taxes on a Lamborghini amounted to around Rs. 125 million and they had been waived, the MP said. "That amount alone is sufficient to cover the university students’ scholarship expenditure for one year. The university teachers’ struggle for a better pay is very reasonable.

An officer in charge of Rakna Lanka security services in universities draws a monthly salary of Rs. 93,000 while a university lecturer draws only a monthly salary of Rs. 45, 000," MP Hashim said.

Speaking during the committee stage of the budget debate on the Ministry of Higher Education, Hashim lamented that the funds allocated from the budget for the higher education sector were not sufficient to ensure the smooth functioning of the universities. "Only Rs 1,000 million has been allocated for the higher education sector from this budget. This amount will not be sufficient to increase the salaries of university teachers. The government has allocated only 2.4 percent of the GDP for education. Thus, it shows that the struggle, the university teachers engaged in, has not yielded the desired results and it could be predicted that there will be more agitations," he said.

University dons lose pay for 100 days

November 21, 2012, 10:45 pm , the island

by Dasun Edirisinghe

The University Grants Commission (UGC) yesterday declared that Circular 890 of 7th June, 2007, which stipulates that workers are not entitled to salaries during their strikes couldn’t be rescinded under any circumstances.

A senior UGC official was responding to the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) demand that circular in question be repealed in keeping with the agreement university teachers had entered into with Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa.

The FUTA is pushing for the removal of eight circulars.

The official told The Island that of them, three would be rescinded shortly, whereas two could only be amended. According to him, a decision couldn’t be taken on the remaining two circulars without consulting the Labour Commissioner and the Treasury.

Having suspended its 100-day-long strike, the FUTA warned that the government would have to face the consequences in case of its failure to honour its promises. The UGC said that a committee had inquired into the FUTA’s demands and examined the issues at hand closely before a decision was taken not to do away with Circular 890 of 7th June, 2007.

The UGC is of the view that there is no reason to rescind the circular No. 890 which dealt with trade union action. According to the circular, employees would not be paid for the days they were on strike.

A senior UGC official pointed out that it was a recommendation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Supreme Court did not grant leave to proceed when the validity of circular No. 890 was challenged before it by a trade union.

The UGC had decided to refer the issues raised with regard to circular No. 955 of 28th April, 2011 on reckoning of allowances for the purpose of computation of Universities Provident Fund, Employees Trust Fund and Payment of Gratuity and circular No. 990 of 31st July, 2012 on payment of a research allowance to the academic staff who are on study leave, to the General Treasury and the Commissioner General of Labour for approval, Prof. Samaranayake said.

He said the UGC had also decided to refer the issues raised with regard to circular no. 805 of 10th July 2002 on utilization of income derived from violation of agreements and bonds entered into with universities by teachers who have hone on study to the Treasury for its observations.

Circulars No. 896 of 8th July 2008 on sabbatical leave to teachers and officers and No. 959 of 12th July 2011 on granting study leave to teachers have been amended.

AUGC letter dated Nov. 22, 2010 on unauthorized media presence at universities/higher educational institutions had been withdrawn, Prof. Samaranayake said, adding that the circular No. 956 of May 3, 2011 on clarification regarding the position of the head of department of study in universities, campuses and the heads of departments in higher educational institutions had already been withdrawn by letter dated July 25, 2011, he said, noting that establishment circular letter No. 10/2011 of May 6, 2011 on the same subject had also been withdrawn. The circular No. 991 of August 6, 2012 on the UGC nominees appointed to serve on the selection committees had been withdrawn, he said.

The UGC informed all Vice Chancellors, Rectors of the Campuses and Directors of the Higher Educational Institutes of its decision in a letter with copies to Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake, Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary of the Higher Education Ministry Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne and FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri.

When contacted for comment, FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri said that he had received the copy of the letter, which he said would be discussed by the FUTA Executive Committee shortly.

Jumbos woo FUTA dissidents

November 18, 2012, 12:00 pm


by Dasun Edirisinghe. the island

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday reiterated the UNP’s support to the university teachers in their ongoing struggle in the education sector. At a meeting held at the Colombo Mayor’s official residence, the UNP leader lambasted the government for failing to address problems in the education sector. From left (Sagala Ratnayaka, Mangala Samaraweera, Ravi Karunanayake, Kabir Hashim and Ranil Wickremesinghe(Pic by Nimal Dayaratne)

Having decided to form an association of university teachers affiliated to the UNP, the party leadership yesterday initiated a dialogue with a section of university dons.

A delegation led by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe met a group of university teachers at the Colombo Mayor’s residence.

Party General Secretary Tissa Attanayake, MPs Mangala Samaraweera, Kabeer Hashim, Ravi Karunanayake and Akila Viraj Kariyawasam took part in discussions. Kurunegala District MP Kariyawasam told The Island that more than 50 university teachers had participated in the discussion to work out a plan to win their legitimate demands. The two sides would meet again soon to finalize their plans, he said.

Kariyawasam quoted some of those teachers, involved in the discussion, as having said that the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) had betrayed their struggle to win their demands including a pay hike recently.

They had alleged that FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri was taken for a ride by Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa to call off the 100-day strike on Oct. 12, and the government had reneged on its promises.

FUTA President Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri said that the decision to resume work had been a collective decision.

Waste and corruption in the university system

The Care of Children – 18

November 18, 2012, 12:00 pm

By Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, The Island

I have been wondering for some time about whether this column should also deal with the problems of university students. Last week, having found myself by far the oldest among the Sri Lankan delegates to a Conference on Indo-Sri Lankan relations held at Osmania University, and older too than most of the Indian participants, I realized I had to accept I was clearly of an age to think of university students, and indeed many lecturers, as children in need of care.

This feeling was exacerbated by the excellence of the presentations by the younger participants at the Conference. Whilst some older lecturers seemed to content themselves with jargon, the session I chaired had two very bright girls from Jawaharlal Nehru University who produced excellent and very practical papers on the Sri Lankan diaspora. They however were postgraduates, and from a place I have long known as a centre of excellence, admission to which is highly competitive. To my surprise they were equaled by two undergraduates from Patna University, who did a precise and well argued presentation on Indo-Sri Lankan trade relations.

I cannot imagine many Sri Lankan students doing as well. This is not because they are not equally capable. The problem is that we hardly stretch them, with many lecturers in many departments thinking that reading out notes to be copied constitutes teaching.

Of course there are exceptions, and I can think of at least two universities, and several faculties, the products of which are as good as those from Indian universities. But one of the universities that is of high quality is the Kotelawala Defence University, and it is precisely because its staff as well as its students are not allowed to sink into complaisance that its students have improved in quality.

Sinking lower

Peradeniya, on the contrary, seems to sink lower and lower with every passing year. The second immediate reason for my worries about what our students are getting is that, on the two days before I left for Hyderabad, I attended sessions of the First COPE Sub-Committee, which now looks at academic institutions. One reason however that one should not complain too much, is that for almost all the time spent inquiring of seven institutions in the two days,

I was the only person present apart from the Chairman. If our legislators do not care enough to try to ensure that students get value for the public money spent on them, I suppose we cannot really expect university administrators or lecturers to care either.

Ultimately we will only achieve accountability if we ensure that information is made available to all stakeholders, and they are given the right to question. Students should not be decision makers, but their views must be considered, and I have long argued that they should be given access to university accounts. When I first made this suggestion a decade back, the then Chairman of the UGC told me that they were accountable to Parliament, which I did not think adequate. Having seen how COPE functions – and it clearly does much more now under the Chairmanship of D E W Gunasekara than it has done for decades – I now know this is not adequate.

I was delighted that the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Peradeniya also advocated this, perhaps because he too was in despair about what had been going on at the University. He and the new Registrar seem to be trying to set things to rights but, for the first time in looking at University accounts, it seemed to me that there were clear indications of fraud and corruption. Previously – with one institution attached to Colombo being an exception, about which the Vice-Chancellor agreed that crookedness seemed obvious – the worst we could be sure of was incompetence. Here clearly the incompetence, if that was all it was, was culpable. The idea that sub-standard furniture should be accepted because buildings had to be equipped in a hurry was for instance totally unacceptable. It must have been obvious to anyone, certainly including those waiting to place more orders, that beds which shook when they were received would soon collapse under student usage.

But as bad was the failure to ensure that students were actually taught. The schedule of lecture hours by all academic staff that COPE had had to ask for (since clearly no one with administrative authority had thought of this before) had not been looked at by the Peradeniya administration. We had to instruct the UGC Chairman to send the schedule to all universities, asking them to study it and send back a report on how they would ensure that lecturers actually did what they were supposed to do, and were held accountable for the public money they absorbed.

Sheer absurdity

The sheer absurdity of what many of our universities do became obvious to me during the last few weeks, during which I found Divisional Secretariats packed with graduates who have been recruited with no clear understanding of what they were supposed to do. Some of them had given up proper jobs because of the government indulgence they greedily grasped, but I suppose government thought it had no alternative since so many others were otherwise unemployable.

Sadly it has not occurred to any government that the obvious alternative is to make educational institutions target employability, with full accountability for their activities.

One bright young Divisional Secretary told me that, having tried to identify talents amongst those entrusted to him, so he could make gainful use of them, he found almost all without the capacity to work productively. He was a product himself of a Faculty that many years ago the Chairman of the UGC described as the cutting edge of the University system, and I could understand this, having realized his competence, as that of another Secretary from the same Faculty, one Tamil, one Sinhalese. But unless we try more intelligently to replicate this, we will simply be wasting public money.

 

NANO technology: SL lagging behind others

November 15, 2012, 10:13 pm , The Island

By Franklin R. Satyapalan

Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank and President of Business Management School Dr. W. A. Wijewardena says successful Sri Lankan expatriates, in the fields of mathematics, chemistry and physics should be invited to return to the country to help re-build its human capital.

Elaborating on views he had expressed in a recent TV interview, Dr. Wijewardena told The Island in a brief interview yesterday that at present Sri Lanka did not have enough scientists and engineers to attend to its development needs. For, the Sri Lankan university system did not have any degrees in Bio-Medical Science to produce Bio–Medical Scientists.

 "The application of NANO technology is so widespread that it will encompass every aspect of human life in the future and those who have knowledge in NANO Technology are set to rule the world in the future," the retired Deputy Governor said.

He said that all students who wished to study Bio –Medical Science had to go overseas. But, on their return they did not have jobs. Therefore, they had to stay in other countries.

"Compared to world resources Sri Lanka does not have sufficient natural resources except for the human resource. There are only 20 million people. The major part of the Sri Lankan population is ageing and the population is expected to decline after 2030. It is high time mathematics, Physics and Chemistry were made compulsory for all students. Singapore could develop its economy as its focus had been on genetic engineering, NANO technology, Information and communication technology and entertainment."

 

University leadership training starts on Dec. 27

November 14, 2012, 10:40 pm , The Island

by Dasun Edirisinghe

The much-delayed leadership training programme for the next batch of university entrants would start on Dec. 27 at 25 centres countrywide, Secretary to the Higher Education Ministry Dr. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne said.

He told The Island that the duration of the programme had to be reduced from three weeks to two due to an additional 5,000 students being added to the next intake on a Court order.

This year the leadership training programme had to be postponed twice, in May and November, due to university teachers demanding that it be delayed until they submitted their recommendations.

Dr. Navaratne said that the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) had finally informed them that they would submit their proposals from next year and this time the programme could go as scheduled.

"We planned to start this year’s leadership training programme in three batches consisting of 9,000 students each," Dr. Navaratne said.

He added that this time 26,721 students would undergo the leadership training programme in military and police establishments countrywide from Dec. 27 to Jan. 13.

According to Dr. Navaratne, there was an increase of 5,609 students over that of the previous year.

The Secretary said that they had submitted a detailed report on the leadership training programme to the Vice Chancellors and Faculty Boards of universities countrywide and obtained their opinion.

"We made several changes in this year’s programme according to the comments of VCs," Dr. Navaratne said.

Competition or Monopoly in Education?

November 13, 2012, 4:42 pm , The Island


By Muttukrishna Sarvananthan

There is considerable opposition from the university students as well as university teachers to the establishment of national or international private universities in Sri Lanka. The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations (FUTA) and the Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) are at the forefront of this opposition. This opposition is based on the false pretence that such private universities would erode the so-called "free education" in Sri Lanka. The hearts and minds battle against and for private universities, in my view, is a battle for and against monopoly in education.

As we have argued in the previous think piece titled The Myth of Free Education, the so-called "free education" (free health as well) in Sri Lanka remains only metaphorically and not literally. Behind the contrived threat to free education remains chilling insecurity of university students and teachers who detest competition to their future or current professions and jobs resulting from potentially better quality student output from the private universities. We could discern this fear psychosis from the fact that students passing-out of private (English-medium) international schools in Sri Lanka are legally barred admission to public-funded universities or higher education colleges (such as the Sri Lanka Law College) or to public sector employment (such as the Sri Lanka Administrative, Foreign, or Planning Services, for example), which has not elicited protest from university students or university teachers.

The paranoia against students of international schools (beginning with the agitation against the erstwhile North Colombo Medical College during the 1980s) is part of the much larger POLITICS OF ENVY towards citizens who are entrepreneurial, independent (of public ‘free’ hand-outs), and upwardly mobile. According to this politics of envy, only the students passing-out of public schools and graduating from public universities are ‘bhumiputras’ (daughters and sons of the soil) and "patriots" who deserve the patronage and privileges of the state. This is also part of the political narrative of the Rajapaksa regime itself typified by the anti-Western and anti-UN (occasionally anti-Indian, as well) hysteria whipped-up regularly for parochial political gains. Ironically, while the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been eager to recruit a handful of students from overseas to some of the universities in Sri Lanka in the past couple of years, hitherto it has not even considered permitting students from international schools to the local universities. Why is this duplicity?

Nonetheless, many academics, senior bureaucrats, politicians (of all political persuasions including the new left, old left, and Islamist), and trade unionists send their children to private English medium international schools and/or foreign universities or misappropriate some of the foreign scholarships available to the country for their own children or next-of-kin thereby overriding fairness and merit. The foregoing examples are indications of lack of confidence in the public schools and universities among the pseudo champions of free education.

It is true that education in Sri Lanka, at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, is chronically under-funded. However, additional public (state) funding is not the appropriate way to enhance the quality of education at all levels because such public funding will only perpetuate the insular, lethargic, and deliberate dumping-down of quality at schools in order to increase the school and university teachers’ earnings in private tutories. Since university teachers are the ones who set the question papers for the G.C.E. A/L examinations and evaluate answer scripts they have a captive market in the private tutories throughout the country. If the FUTA and IUSF are altruistic about protecting free education by increasing public funding to schools and tertiary educational institutions they should also campaign for the abolishment of private tutories because most of the tutories are fleecing innocent students and their parents. Therefore, desperately needed additional investments in the education sector should come from the private sector and NOT the public sector in order to improve the quality of education.

Many people argue that the government should clamp down on corruption (which drains public finances) and wasteful public expenditures and investments (such as the huge and rising defence budget, the Hambantota air and sea ports, Mihin Air, etc) and commit that money for public education and public heath, inter alia. I do agree that there is rampant corruption and astronomical wasteful expenditures by the Rajapaksa government and those have to be tamed. However, the call for stamping out corruption and wasteful public expenditures in order to commit more public money for public education and public health is a negative argument; one wrong cannot justify another. Instead, the champions of free education should convince the general public by positively arguing how and why enhanced public expenditures on education will improve the quality of primary, secondary, and tertiary education in Sri Lanka.

In my view, the policy debate on the admission of private universities in the country should not be framed in terms of preservation/protection versus dilution of free education; instead it should be framed in terms of competition versus monopoly for increasing the accessibility to prospective students and at the same time improving the quality of university education.

Competition was the bedrock of human civilization according to the Darwinian Theory of human evolution. Of course, not everyone on earth may agree with Charles Darwin’s theory of human evolution. Monopoly, either private or state, is detrimental to human welfare according to the fundamentals of economic science. According to a Tamil dictum keerai kadaikum aethir kadai vendum (even a shop selling green leaves need a competitor). In political principle and practice state monopoly is inherently anti-democratic that would lead to autocracy.

The state monopoly in education in Sri Lanka has dumped down the quality of primary, secondary, and tertiary education in the post-independence period. In fact, the admission of private hospitals in Sri Lanka since the late 1970s has improved the quality of free public health service throughout the country because of greater choice that has diminished the pressure on free public health service. In the same way, I believe that the admission of private universities could improve the quality of public universities as a result of competition for student admissions that would diminish the pressure on non-fee-levying public universities.

In the present circumstances, state monopoly is synonymous with monopoly of the Rajapaksa family. How come those who oppose monopoly of political power by the Rajapaksa family champion the cause of state monopoly in education (and indeed in other sectors as well)?

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. He can be contacted at sarvi@pointpedro.org