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In Sri Lanka, the government has historically been in cahoots with the private sphere when it comes to the most “common” sectors (education and healthcare)
Lahiru Weerasekara, convenor of the Inter University Students’ Federation or IUSF, better known as Anthare, is a colourful if not divisive figure. He inspires love and hate, sometimes on the same terms. He is derided by those who wish to dismantle the State’s grip on education and admired by those who wish to preserve the “free” 
in free education. It is difficult to ascribe to him every strike action and demonstration that his outfit has carried out, but if there ever were a student leader who epitomised the angst of the moment, the agitation against the privatisation of education, it is he. A friend of mine pointed out recently that everyone’s a radical as long as he does not have children, is not married, and is committed to the hilt with an ideology he or she entertains as the absolute truth. Lahiru Weerasekara does not have children, is not married, and entertains a particularly compelling ideology as the absolute truth. He is no hero of mine, but that ideology of his is compelling enough, so I am with him.
There are two schools of thought regarding higher education in this country. One school contends that free education must of necessity stop at the point a student completes his secondary education, i.e. his A/Levels. Reasons given as justifications for this point of view usually include the fact that the State, meagre as its finances are when it comes to funding government institutions, must buckle up even more when it comes to university education. Proponents of this school contend that what is needed is a vibrant private sector to cater to those who a)can’t enter a local university and b) can pay through higher education if given a chance or choice. Since complete privatisation is untenable if not impractical, they contend further, the ideal system would be a private-public partnership, such as the one implemented and carried out at the Kotelawala Defence Academy. They are not supporters of the free market, they are realists, and as realists, they (at least vaguely) want to balance equity and equality.
The other school of thought opposes any reform in this regard, and to this end wants the State to maintain its grip on higher education. They believe that the government is not doing enough, that it should be spending at least 6% of the GDP on universities and other institutions of higher education (trade colleges, industrial schools, what-not), and that it should do away with private colleges and universities which offer degrees that cannot strictly be monetised and hence exist outside the bounds of the free market (medicine and engineering being just two of these). In other words, not only are they against the commoditisation of education (where they are correct), they are also insistent that whatever attempt the State makes in compromising on their principles and shared perspectives is an act of aggression that can only end in the complete privatisation of education (where they are dogmatic). Given that in Sri Lanka, the government has historically been in cahoots with the private sphere when it comes to the most “common” sectors (education and healthcare), they are correct.
Where do I stand, and where should we stand? Ideally in neither camp, but given that these are divisive times and given that we happen to live in a divisive society, a choice must be made. Malinda Seneviratne once wrote that while education must not be sold off for a song and two cents, this does not give unbridled licence to oppose the entry of students to private institutions if those two above points, i.e. they can’t enter a local University and can pay through those private institutions, are met. But Marx and Engels made it impossible for us to stand with them without opposing Adam Smith, and the Marxists of the 20th century made it impossible for us to support Castro and oppose American imperialism while supporting reform movements in the former camp. In that sense, the divide between Lahiru Weerasekara and Neville Fernando can never be resolved. If we are to stand with the former, we have to oppose the latter. And given the reality today, I am not so sure whether I want to stand with the latter.
Here’s why.
Around a year ago, a prominent online news and comment site ran several opinion pieces from students who had been “cheated” at their A Levels and thus of an opportunity to pursue their dreams to become doctors without leaving Sri Lanka. One after another, and one testimony after another, these students argued that they did not want to leave the country, that they wanted to give back to the people who had funded them (parents and relatives in the case of those who had studied in private schools; the entire public in the case of those who had studied in local schools). For a while at least, these essays worked, and they won the sympathy of a number of objective, unbiased readers. But then, as one piece piled up on top of another, other comments began flowing in. The writers of these comments made one point: that these students had been “planted” and that as students of a derided private medical institution they had a bias for the continuation of its interests. Their case was compelling, and yet, it failed to account for one important fact: the disparity between their access to privilege (from English-speaking backgrounds) and the lack of access thereto of a majority who made it to local universities and had to make the hard yards to make it there.
The simple truth then is that the government, outdated though its institutions may be, is nevertheless reining in on the need to qualify educational attainments by means of universally accepted metrics and thresholds
No amount of testimonials can erase this fact, which is a result of decades of class differences that have gone unchecked and have been institutionalised in the public and private sphere. (I’ll explore this in next week’s piece.) The simple truth then is that the government, outdated though its institutions may be, is nevertheless reining in on the need to qualify educational attainments by means of universally accepted metrics and thresholds. In the absence of a profit motive, Sri Lanka’s higher education sector is determined, on paper at least, to match result with performance and performance with result. This is true not just of academic qualifications, it is also true of professional qualifications (especially accountancy). After all, while the State can be faulted for indulging in age-old and primitive mindsets, it can hardly be faulted for lowering standards by, for instance, taking students through hard modules and topics and then assessing them on easy MCQ and computer based exams. And yet, that is what most private degree awarding institutions are doing now. Where are the quality checks?
Of course, those who bat for private education will say that standards have not gone tumbling down and they are aware always of the need to balance the need for profits with the need for academic performance. But private degree awarding institutions, in Sri Lanka, are assessed by those bodies they are affiliated to, elsewhere, on the basis of success rates. Who’s to say that either those institutions or those bodies, given the prevalence of moneyed interests in both, will not privilege profit over performance and jack up those success rates by, for instance, lowering minimal requirements?
This is a real threat, and it is a threat that has been borne out by evidence. Not here, but in Britain and the West as a whole. In July 2016, for instance, an article in The Guardian raised questions about Pearson and its pervasive influence on English school life. While that influence is much more readily accepted in the United States, where private education is rampant, critics in Britain doubt the ability of for-profit-ventures planning out national exam standards. Of particular concern was the fact that Pearson then was managed by an educationist who had once contended that Ministers must allow state-run schools to be run for profit, which led to this observation being made by a best-selling writer on US education reform: “The corporation [Pearson] is acting as a quasi-government agency in several instances, but it is not a quasi-government agency: it is a business that sells products and services. What part of the field of education does Pearson not manage? At what point do conflicts of interest arise? Is it acting in the best interests of students, of the nation, or of its own business?” Apt.
Here’s the deal. Britain, like Sri Lanka, historically has had an education sector reliant on decrees from the centre. It is no cause for surprise then that the ruckus over some British universities imported here has to do with the fact that those universities are, back home, not that well recognised or for that matter respected. Unlike Sri Lanka, though, Britain does not boast of a lecturers’ union or students’ association that can match up to FUTA or IUSF. This is an important point, because once educational standards start to come down, once the fight for free and comprehensive education takes on an inescapable, national character (it already has), we would need associations that are vehemently concerned over the one issue which brings an unlikely parvenu like me on to the same pedestal occupied by Lahiru Weerasekara: that the profit motive, while cohabiting rather tensely with academic performance in the West, can hardly be expected to cohabit with it once transplanted to Sri Lanka. Besides, we have a macabre history of tinkering with education. If it takes a Lahiru Weerasekara to stop that tinkering, I am afraid we have no choice but to stand with him to put a stop to it.
