SRI LANKA: Differences Emerge on how to Fix Education System

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, May 17 2002 (IPS) - While most Sri Lankans agree that the country’s education system deserves a failing grade for being outdated and inefficient, there is disagreement among decision-makers about exactly what education reforms should be.

One area of dispute is a move to change the country’s university education system, from the current one that guarantees free education for all students enrolled for undergraduate degrees, to one that permits the entrance of private, fee-levying universities as well.

“The state cannot do it alone. We have to provide the opportunities for others to come in,” Education Minister Karunasena Kodithuwaku told a conference on national education earlier this month. He argues that the state does not have the required finances to shake the tertiary education system out of its slump.

But this has been shot down by critics like the leftwing People’s Liberation Front (JVP), although it concedes that the present university system needs an overhaul.

“The policy is ‘education for all’ and that policy must be protected under any reforms,” says JVP parliamentarian Bimal Ratnayake, flatly ruling out any measure that would threaten Sri Lanka’s free education policy.

This disagreement frustrates the private sector, which is among those calling for education reforms tailored to producing graduates who will be employable in the prevailing economic climate.

The private sector employs 45 percent of Sri Lanka’s workforce of 6.8 million in a country of 19 million people.

“When you look at the calibre of youth graduating from university today, you find that they are ‘unemployable’ — and therein lies the problem,” says Faizal Salieh, chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce’s education project. “The problem with this education system is its relevance.”

Kabir Hashim, minister for tertiary education and training, suggests that state universities initiate a dialogue with the private sector when they establish courses and formulate curricula.

“We are willing to take advice from the private sector. But it is up to them to give us the right information, which has so far not been very forthcoming in the proper sense,” he adds. “The private sector must ensure that our investment is secured by their guarantee that the students we produce would be provided employment.”

Sri Lanka’s secondary education system is equally bereft with shortcomings, a fact best illustrated by the amount of money parents cough up to pay for the extra classes their children attend after school.

The total amount of money parents spend on these private classes is more than the government’s annual budget on secondary school education, says Kodithuwaku.

Everyday, some 800,000 high school students converge at Nugegoda, a suburb in Colombo, to attend the lessons conducted in dozens of small and large private tuition establishments, he adds.

Sri Lanka’s secondary education system is a potpourri of state and semi-state schools and a recent category of private “international” schools.

The country’s commitment to providing free education for the past 50 years has contributed significantly to it having an impressive social indicator: a 91 percent literacy rate, the highest such rate in any developing country.

But currently, problem areas include a lack of accountability, poor planning and inadequate standards of teaching, says Dr Dieter Kotte, an education specialist from Germany who is a consultant to the Sri Lankan government.

At the primary level, the inadequate training of teachers and the lack of monitoring of curriculum needs to be addressed, Kotte adds. But in some areas, there are too many teachers.

“These problems only seem to become more acute at secondary school, where the majority of students often end up taking tuition from the very teachers who take their lessons in school. This is simply not efficient,” Kotte says.

Examinations are another bone of contention. “Ordinary level and advanced level examinations focus too narrowly on learning by heart and they are not oriented toward problem solving and transferability skills,” he said, referring to the two national level exams all Sri Lankan students take to graduate from secondary school.

Lack of English proficiency also impedes students’ ability to access information technology. However, the JVP’s Ratnayake points out the impracticality of focusing on IT education when 50 percent of the country lacks basic factors like access to electricity. “We cannot forget the masses,” he says.

Those seeking reform have also to grapple with the limited number of places available in the state universities. Only two percent of the some 115,000 students who sit for the national exam in their final high school year qualifying for admission.

That, according to education experts, is a very low rate by global standards.

However, Dr Jayadeva Uyangoda, a lecturer at Colombo University, laments the focus on employment and economic growth at the expense of the political and social values of education.

“There are larger normative social issues that need to be raised in any meaningful discussion of education reforms,” he says. “I don’t get educated just to get a job. There are other things.”

Supun Walpola, a science graduate from Sri Jayawardenapura University, adds that policymakers fail to listen what the students have to say. “Free education is the best thing but we need to streamline the system to ensure that it serves all sections of the country. For example, it does not serve students from rural areas nearly well enough,” he says.