University education: Need for change and expansion - EDITORIAL

The current literacy rate in our country is estimated to stand at 92.3% - one of the highest in the Asian region. Yet, at the time we received independence from Britain in 1946, the literacy rate in the country stood at a mere 57.8%, with female literacy being 43.8% while male literacy stood at 70.1%. 

As Lankans, we can justly take pride in this fact. The credit for this remarkable turnaround, goes to the system of free education the country adopted as far back as in 1943, which through free education ushered in a system that did away with the earlier two-tiered education system under which fee-levying ‘English medium’ schools catered to the country’s elite, while a system of ‘vernacular schools’ catered to others. 

Today, over 35,000 graduates pass out of both state and private universities annually.
Unfortunately, despite having such a high level of literacy, figures revealed by the Department of Census and Statistics show that the country’s unemployed population rose to 100,000 during the first quarter of 2020. According to current statistics our unemployment rate increased to 4.60% in Jun 2022, from the previously reported figure of 4.30% in March 2022. (ceicdata.com).

Dr. Lalith Wijetunge, a past president of the Organization of Professional Associations (OPA) has pointed out that a majority of graduates who pass through the portals of our universities do not have adequate skills required by industry.  
In parliament last week, President Ranil Wickremesinghe charged the free education system in the country was in need of drastic reform. He added certain sections of the students were abusing the free education system by over-staying their terms in campus, pointing out to the fact that he himself had graduated at age of 21.

One of the best examples of the abuse of the free education system being that of a student leader recently arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) who turned 29 years in September this year! Similarly another point raised by the president was the fact that graduates passing out of the universities in the country lacked skills required by the job market.
The OPA, as pointed out earlier, produces thousands of graduates who do not possess employable skills, as most of them being from the ‘Arts’ faculty.
An example of this was best exemplified when a large international banking corporation set up its Electronic Data Processing Centre in 2004 in Colombo. Sadly, the bank was unable to find the quantum of IT qualified staff in the country. 

In the end it had to fill these positions with qualified persons from overseas.
At the same time, our country does not have sufficient number of doctors to treat its growing population. World Bank statistics show that up to 2019 our country had .35 doctors to 1,000 people. Presently, the ration has improved to reach 1.3 doctors per 1,000 people. However, this number still falls well short of the number of required doctor-people ratio.
Despite this shortage student unions and doctors unions took to the streets yester-year in protest against the concept of setting up private medical universities in the country which could help bring the figures to acceptable levels.

Obviously, it is time to change the system in which universities continue to churn out thousands of ‘Arts’ graduates who, as we pointed out earlier, end up joining the numbers of unemployed. It is also time to change the process where a few persons/groups hold the country for ransom via strikes/street blockades for their private, political or other agenda.
Last week’s across the board consensus between the president, the governing party and the Opposition, during the budget debate for the establishment of private higher education institutes and universities was good. It needs to be applauded.

Speaking during the debate President Wickremesinghe revealed that Sri Lankan students studying abroad utilized around US$ 3 billion annually for their studies in different parts of the world. Had we had the necessary infrastructure in place, these students could have entered local universities and valuable foreign exchange could have been saved. Again, there is also a need to change the emphasis of university curricular to include subjects to meet modern employment needs.
We can, but hope our parliamentarians go beyond their current consensus regarding higher educational needs and unite to practically implement higher educational changes they agreed to on Wednesday 
last week.
Playing politics with educational needs of the country as we saw in the recent past can only worsen the plight of our country and the future generation at great risk.