There’s Nothing Wrong with Sri Lankan Universities

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Upon reading the article on “What is wrong with our universities” in the Daily Mirror, I was for a moment bemused. It took me for a while to understand what it really means. I am sure of one thing about the article: it does two things at the same time; while blaming the government, it is balming the government too.
I see how the writer carefully touches and avoids certain areas of greater sensitivity. At a glance, I was looking for politicization of the university administration among the five reasons he has identified and I couldn’t find it. As it is what is plaguing the university system in Sri Lanka as one of the most dangerous reasons to harm its autonomy, how could a writer miss that as one of the major reasons? Then I understood the duality of the article.

However, let me take point by point as far as possible. First is the funding shortage. Where is this substantial increase in the proportion of total expenditure devoted to overall education? During the height of the war in 2005 or so, the country allocated 2.3% of its GDP for education and two to three years after the war ended in 2011, it was cut down to 1.8%. This is a widely discussed fact and the main reason for Sri Lankan academics to take to the streets. The voices of our academics were faded away when the budget for 2013 showed that it allocated only 1.6% of the GDP for education. So where is this “substantial increase devoted for education”?

I am nonplussed by the statement, “It is worrisome to note that our universities are fast decaying.” What is the embedded meaning in that? However, the writer goes to explain “decaying” in terms of its infrastructure. Yes, this is due to the low allocation of funds for the sector. However, our universities are not ‘decaying’ but they are let down by the authorities as unimportant and therefore, they are faced with a crisis in infrastructure facilities as well, along with many others.
Our graduates are not unemployable. A very sound article was written by Professor Milton Rajaratna a couple of days ago on this issue. There is a problem of graduate unemployment, and it is due to the economic policies we adopt which are not suitable for a country like ours and not because our graduates are unemployable. I do not think I should elaborate on this as Professor Rajaratna has clearly pointed out facts in this respect.

"Look at the world-renowned universities and how students get involved in politics. They learn fair play during their undergraduate days"

Student unionism is a universal factor. It should be taken as a healthy sign of a vigilant next generation and not as a negative point. The whole problem in our country is that we think youth should act as the old. We do not recognize young blood and its energy. We do not put it to good use. Instead what we try to do is to tame it or suppress it and try to adjust it to the lethargic maturity which is untimely for both the younger generation and for the 21st century. Look at the world-renowned universities and how students get involved in politics. They learn fair play during their undergraduate days. They are accepted by letting them be. And the authorities listen to what they say without trying to suppress them. So they get the training to be the next generation of disciplined politicians with their healthy background.

Now, if we take the new intake in 2013, because of the Z-score fiasco, all the universities were compelled to admit students in excess of what they could actually accommodate.  The state media boasted of taking more students into the university system. But how many of us know the true picture? We have a shortage of lecture halls, lecturers, etc. to meet the additional demand and most of all it was reported that in certain universities hostels could not accommodate the large influx of students and that the students had to come to the university to attend to their ablutions. It was also reported that some students had to queue up at the canteen for several hours to collect their breakfast. In addition, some students even suffered from food poisoning due to stale food served in canteens.

One might ask why these matters were not brought to the notice by the students themselves, if they had to undergo such dire conditions. Students, as newcomers and freshers are not always vocal. At the same time, coming from faraway rural or semi-rural areas, as the large majority of the state university entrants are from, they are at a stage where they face cultural shock. While getting adjusted to the new environment and working towards meeting deadlines of the assignments and other academic demands, the new life is not easy for them.  Amid all these, when they are not provided with the basic facilities, it is inevitable that another 1971 will be created within the Sri Lankan university system. Then, blaming the students and universities for their unionism may be futile. If we learnt lessons from the past, then we need to rectify such problems before they get any worse.

University education in Sri Lanka today does not need a total overhauling and restructuring. It mainly needs autonomy; it needs de-politicization.  The issue of the curricular has been discussed at many forums over several years now. Academics have reviewed their curricular at Faculty Review Sessions and curricular are being reformed in “content and in methodology to give room for the spirit of inquiry, discovery and experimentation”.  The problem is to do with implementation because of unnecessary influences. Deans are being asked to carry out thousand and one assignments via World Bank projects and they are compelled to pressure the academic community to carry out tasks that do not belong to them. Academic community is overloaded with everything else other than teaching and researching. What the Sri Lankan university system needs is complete autonomy from political agendas. It need not listen to the World Bank rules and regulations if the government funds it enough and let them teach and research.

The role of the Humanities is questioned by many. Many have misunderstood the use of Humanities’ education. Students who study Humanities along with those who question the role of Humanities need to be educated that Humanities ideally should produce thinkers to this society. We do not need universities to become vocational training centres. This issue has been brought to discuss at many forums during and after the trade union action by the FUTA.

It is true that Humanities placement policy has made an over-production of its kind. But this does not stem from the university system itself. Arts subjects are taught in schools and most of the schools in rural and semi-rural areas have only Arts streams as there are no facilities for science and other subjects. It is therefore important to equip schools in rural and semi-rural areas with facilities for other subject streams so that students have more selection choices. Most of our rural students opt for Arts subjects in schools not because they like Arts. It is mainly because of the availability of only Arts and non-availability of other subject streams.

I am not too sure what the writer means by “platform for transfers”. Transfers from where to where? It is highly ambiguous. We need a large stock of qualified and skilled manpower true, but we must remember that the words such as “skilled, manpower, etc.” are more associated with vocations and not with education. Therefore, it is important to understand what is expected of universities as seats of knowledge and we need to recruit and retain the best brains in the country for our universities and not the best bodies in the country so that we can work towards the development of the country together with “skilled manpower”.     To do that we need “Our Universities” to function as prime seats of knowledge and what I mean by “Our Universities”is the State Universities as non-profit-oriented higher education organizations.