There is a sinister logic behind the decision and the ideology that supports it. Student activism of the JVP ( and its offshoot Peratugamis) has successfully weaponised the insecurity of the local, largely vernacular undergraduates to mobilise them against their own kith and kin. Now in power, the JVP is turning these insecurities into state policies
The government has abruptly terminated the admission of local students to undergraduate medical degree programmes at the Kotelawala Defence University. The decision came out of the blue, just in an announcement by Deputy Defence Minister Major General (Retd) Aruna Jayasekara to Parliament. So much for a degree of certainty in the state policies this country badly needs in its economic recovery phase.
This is not the first time that the JVP-affiliated student activists and the Government Medical Officers Association, GMOA , have successfully shut down a private medical school in the country. That destructive practice dates back to 1989 when the North Colombo Medical School was closed and later nationalised. Recently, SAITEM medical faculty suffered the same fate.
No explanation was given for the government’s decision, but its sinister connotations should be clear to any discerning Sri Lankan. To put it plainly, the destruction that the JVP had unleashed on public education in the country from the sidelines and through monopolistic student union politics has now been institutionalised through government writ. What you are witnessing is the cannibalising of the children of this country by other means, with a renewed vengeance.
The decision to exclude local civilian students from KDU medical degrees is wrong and counterproductive at the same time. First, It smacks of agovernment-enforced apartheid education.
Second, It is a fiscal drain since these students and many thousands deprived of education opportunities would go abroad, mostly to second and third-tier universities, to obtain a medical degree at the expense of limited foreign reserves.
Third, all these machinations to nip in the bud of private institutions training doctors are taking place against a sizable exodus of medical professionals to greener pastures- though this is not a unique Sri Lankan phenomenon. To address the brain drain of local talent, Sri Lanka, which has a large pool of educated youth, should produce more of it. Instead, the government is setting a cap on it.
There is a sinister logic behind the decision and the ideology that supports it. Student activism of the JVP ( and its offshoot Peratugamis) has successfully weaponised the insecurity of the local, largely vernacular undergraduates to mobilise them against their own kith and kin. Now in power, the JVP is turning these insecurities into state policies. The insular ideological straightjacket forced upon higher education has already deprived the vast majority of children of their rightful opportunity to obtain a university degree and, by extension, resulted in the persistent degradation of Sri Lanka’s human capital. A cursory glance at the data on Sri Lanka’s migrant workforce would reveal the extent of the damage.
In 2022, Sri Lanka sent 311,056 workers abroad, of which an overwhelming 60 per cent were unskilled or low-skilled ( 25% housemaids and 34 per cent low-skilled). Professionals accounted for barely 4.6 %, and what is termed as skilled workers accounted for nearly 30%.
Why does Sri Lanka, which takes pride in its universal free education, export housemaids and not software engineers is due to the self-enforced restrictions on higher education. That is also a key reason why Sri Lanka could not link up with global supply chains in anything other than garments.
The big picture
The rot is deeper in the education policies, and squandering the future of our children is callous.
The data on student performance at the advanced and ordinary levels should provide the context for the authorities to foster opportunities for the future of the country’s children.
For instance, in the 2022-23 academic year, 263,933 students sat for the GCE advanced level, and 166,938 were qualified for university, i.e. 63.25%. Also, 96,955 (34%) dropped out. However, there are only 44,000 university places available in the state universities, meaning an overwhelming 75% of students qualified to go to a state university would be deprived of their rightful opportunity.
Similarly, 340,000 students sat for the GCE Ordinary level in the same year, and 76,000 ( 22%) dropped out after the Ordinary Levels. That is in addition to the dropout rate of nearly 10 per cent of students by the time they reach the ordinary level. The government should provide educational opportunities for students at each level. Instead, the system is rigged against the preponderance of the country’s children, i.e. almost all of them, minus 44,000, who would go to a state university out of a cohort of approximately 340,000. That accounts for an overwhelming 87% of students who might have entered grade 1.
The way forward
Sri Lanka should provide opportunities for all its children who desire to have a university-level education through a system backed by grants and a tuition fee loan scheme, the latter is the most popular mode of financing university education in most developed countries.
An industrious state would not just stop there but seek to attract international students to account for 25% of each cohort.
The government should fix the rot in state universities, promote Private universities, advance private-public partnerships and modernise vocational training education.
The rot in the state universities is deeper and probably the hardest to fix. They lack the requisite institutional culture. At the very least, they need competent managers, just like modern airlines do. I myself am a local university graduate, therefore, this is not sour grapes. But surely there is a sense of disappointment. The government can seek expertise from success cases like Singapore, where NTU (in which I attended my master’s) rose to the top 25 global universities within two decades.
However, Sri Lanka cannot wait till the state universities are fixed to provide education for the rest of its children – though that seems to be the primary grudge of JVP-affiliated student activists.
At present, a host of non-state institutions, mainly private-public partnerships, provide education for 20,000 students. In addition, transnational education (TNE), mainly associated with UK universities, has expanded. Numbers rose by 50%, with 53 915 enrolments in 2022-23.
Sri Lanka should harness the interest of local youth to have a quality education. A value system which places greater importance on education should be nurtured – and is a welcome diversion from the ghetto culture of guns, gangs and rap, infesting working-class children in most societies. Instead, successive governments, through their misplaced policies, have cannibalised generations of our children.
Where there are willing Public-Private stakeholders and an overwhelming public interest, the government should foster the momentum, not just to create education opportunities for our kids but also to transform Sri Lanka into an education hub.
An industrious government would have created dedicated education zones, which can also serve as incubation and research hubs. It could regulate existing non-state education institutions affiliated with foreign universities and provide them with financial support to enlarge their operations.
Branding also matters, perhaps more in higher education than tourism. A forward-looking government could invite willing top 200 global universities to set up branches in Sri Lanka and provide a start-up grant of $ 10 million for each to incentivise participation. Sri Lanka needs to create opportunities for a 200,000 annual intake at the undergraduate level, which is only feasible through private-public partnerships. Postgraduate and research clusters need international cooperation and enhanced private-public cooperation, plus an international faculty.
Equally important, yet overlooked element is the tertiary and vocational training. Sri Lanka has a host of public vocational training institutes, which altogether recruited 123,825 students in 2021. However, these institutions suffer from crippling dropout rates. For instance, in the same year, only 58,929 students completed their courses. Also, they operate well below their capacity. For instance, the Vocational Training Authority, which has places for more than a 50,000 student intake, had only 33 375 student enrolments the same year. All that points to a lack of foresight in the government.
Image: General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU)
The neglect of vocational training education has given rise to a bloated, unskilled and semi-skilled labour force. An industrious government would integrate these institutions with global partners in countries such as Germany, which has a world-renowned apprentice system, and other global leaders in technical education, such as Japan, Korea and Sri Lanka’s industrial sector.
It should provide students with opportunities to obtain internationally demanding qualifications alongside their resident courses. With barely $ 500 million dedicated investment, Sri Lanka can turn its vocational training institutions around to become a global success story.
Instead, the government is busy depriving its children of their rightful opportunities. There is no dearth of resources and willing international and private sector partners. Instead, an insular state ideology has hijacked the future of our children.
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Courtesy of The Daily Mirror