The problems of the university system in Sri Lanka (Part II)

Continued from last week

(A text of speech delivered by Professor Warnapala, Minister of Higher Education at the Workshop on Quality Related Issues in Higher Education in Sri Lanka organised by the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Directors (CVCD) at Hotel Janaki in Colombo on 4th January 2008.)

by Professor Wiswa Warnapala

The criticism is that the University has been prevented from playing a proper role in the public life of the country, and the University has not been used in the formulation of public policy. Its research has not been utilized for the formulation of public policy.

Though this was true in the initial phase of the development of our Universities, the situation underwent a change in the seventies and today the Universities get actively involved in the formulation of policy.

Since the Universities were expected to impart the basic knowledge through degrees, the research relevant to the development process, suffered, and most of the research done in the early period was not development-oriented, and it was this deficiency probably which distanced the public policy maker from the University.

Prof. Ralph Pieris, responding to this charge, stated that 'this has gone together with the almost complete absence of a research tradition in the form of post-graduate schools and research institutes'.

It was this kind of tradition which in the end interfered with the development of the University as an intellectual institution. The question was whether our Universities gave birth to an indigenous intellectual culture which is capable of undertaking research to help in the development of the country.

In other words, the intellectual community should have undertaken research with both a social and developmental relevance. It is in this context that the concept of indigenization of research becomes relevant, for which a committed indigenous intellectual community is necessary.

Yet another noticeable feature in the system is the wastage, and this is not very much associated with the drop-outs; it is related to a cycle of violence and boycotts associated with student indiscipline.

There is a youth culture associated with student indiscipline and it has its own political overtones. In 1952 there was a student clash with the Police and thereafter there were intermittent acts of student militancy in the sixties but a trend began in the post-1971 period, culminating in a form of student activism which displayed characteristics of both anarchy and nihilism.

This has become the major destabilizing factor. A politically motivated group of students are behind this destructive student activism, which, in the last three decades, has become a major de-stabilizing factor in the Universities.

It was not student activism of the fifties and sixties based on Marxist ideological debates where students displayed the characteristics of a youth movement with an international dimension and a world vision, and the student movement was more democratic in character whereas the present day student activism is totally anarchical and fascistic in its character as an attempt has been made to impose a monolithic ideology on the student community.

This kind of youth culture has transformed the Sri Lankan Universities into centres of agitation and students indulge in violence without an objective, and trivial local issues are used to mobilize students.

Rarely an international issue is discussed and this explains the genesis of the contemporary undergraduate who is neither intellectual nor scholarly. He is only mouthing slogans and pasting posters to serve the interests of a coterie of young politicians who still believe in the political potentiality of the country's youth.

The crisis in our system, as in similar systems of all the developing countries, is the expansion of the enrolment. In most developing countries, as in Sri Lanka, the problem was the relatively low enrolment rate; in the past thirty years, enrolment in these countries increased on an average of 6.2 per cent a year.

The enrolment rate in China was 5 per cent while the rate in India was 6 per cent; it was 3 per cent in Pakistan. In Sri Lanka, as stated earlier, it stagnated at 2 per cent. The annual intake to Universities is still not 20,000 and those left out of the system is more than 100,000 though they have found access to various higher educational institutions. Higher education in Sri Lanka is heavily dependent on Government funding, and the unit costs are very high.

The Government finds it difficult to contain pressures for enrolment expansion and the ad hoc changes made in response to such pressures, for instance, the establishment of new Universities, have created a fresh set of problems, and the system is beset with such issues as over-crowding, lack of physical facilities, inadequate staffing, poor library resources, insufficient scientific equipment and various other international inefficiencies; they contribute to the falling standards.

A large part of the share of the public higher education budget is devoted to non-educational expenditures. The Distance Mode and the concept of open learning have been utilized to provide more access, and the graduates produced through this formula are half-baked, and this has interfered with the intellectual image of the Sri Lankan graduate.

It is here that policy initiatives are necessary to enhance the quality of the graduate as the same graduate, though has an external degree, competes with the internal graduate for employment.

Today the traditional employers of graduates are beginning to be replaced by modern employers in industry, and this requires a radical change in the courses, which are specifically designed to train the future leaders of business and industry.

It is now necessary for the Universities to reject the stricter academic training of single subject honours courses in favour of multi-subject courses which try to avoid divisions in traditional learning.

A young man must do an academic discipline, from which he can gain a training that will be of benefit in whatever career he or she may chose later. The very rapidity of expansion has inevitably meant some lowering of standards, and there is a shortage of first class scholars in certain departments.

The question is whether there is proper scholarship among the teachers, whose intellectual calibre is poor. They cannot stimulate the undergraduate into useful intellectual activity, and this trend has to be arrested in the interest of the intellectual culture of the Universities.

The new student, unfortunately, lacks any interest in scholastic work, and many students drift into the Universities simply because they want a degree which will enable a person to get a job, and this idea has been inculcated into them by politically - motivated student groups.

Such problems demonstrate how necessary it is for the Universities to think out more clearly on these issues and to highlight explicitly their true function. The primary function of the University is to teach and to further research, with a social and moral responsibility.

Let me quote Prof. Asa Briggs to prove my point, "what the student needs from his University not merely a furthering of his intellectual competence and skill in his chosen field, he does not go there to become a master of his subject, in addition to becoming a master of his subject he will also become a master of himself, learn to think independently and resourcefully, and come to maturity in a society which, through its characteristic way of life, will enrich him in proportion as he enriches it."

While agreeing with Prof. Asa Briggs, it is my view that this is the perception which we need to promote in our Universities if they are to function as centres of learning. The undergraduate community should become active partners of a scholarly community.

The obvious impact of the Universities on society is through their output of graduates, and it is at this point that we need to look at the issues relating to governmental control of the system in Sri Lanka. Universities are accountable to the nation as the funding comes from the Government, money is provided by the Sri Lankan taxpayer.

The traditionally strong role of the State in higher education has its origins in the political and economic circumstances, and since 1921, the system came under government control, and there developed an integral relationship between the Government and the Universities, and this was largely because of the fact that investment in higher education generates benefits important for economic development.

The need to control university expenditure led to the creation of the University Grants Committee in 1919, and the terms of reference of this Committee states that it would 'inquire into the financial needs of university education in the United Kingdom and to advise the Government as to the application of grants that may be made by Parliament.' in theory, it was a Committee to advise the Treasury on the needs of the Universities.

It would be relevant here in this context to quote from the Special Report of the Committee of Public Accounts of 1966-67 of the House of Commons, according to which 'the position of the UGC is in many ways unique. It acts as a link or buffer between the Government and the universities, interpreting each party to the other.

It is wholly independent of the universities, though most of its members are actively engaged in university work. It is also, for the most part, independent of Government, though its staff are civil servants.

From the Government's point of view it is the accepted source of expert advice on university affairs, including the allocation of the resources which the Government makes available from the universities.

It is the accepted medium for representing their opinions and needs to the Government and for ensuring that the allocation is equitable. The creation of the UGC and the development of its special position are widely regarded as an eminently successful example of administrative ingenuity.'

The functioning of the University Grants committee, the Lord Robbins Report said, should not imapair university autonomy, and this has been stressed as the central idea. The UGC in Sri Lanka was modeled on this in 1978 and it has played a similar role with greater responsibilities in such areas as admissions to universities.

For more than 100 years, governments have continued to respect the scholarly integrity of the Universities. These problems arise in a public sector oriented higher education system like that of Sri Lanka.

It has been observed that public sector institutions have to adapt to national needs. The Report of Lord Robbins, referring to the UGC in Britain, stated that 'the members enjoy complete autonomy in the determination of the content of education and in the control of degree standards.

Each university independently determines the balance between teaching and research, though general considerations can and have been brought to the notice of Universities by the University Grants Committee'. Another aspect of Universities autonomy is their responsibility for the selection of students.

The Ministry of Education has no control either over an individual students decision to enter a university or over the total size of the students body. The universities 'autonomy in student selection allows the size of the student body and the selection of students within that body to conform to the particular resources of staff and accommodation which each university has to offer and to the standards set by the University and its faculties.'

In Sri Lanka, the UGC has become the target of the students community when comes to their grievances, and this is perhaps the only Ministry of Higher Education and the UGC in the entire world before which they demonstrate to get their grievances redressed but their main motive is to derive political mileage on behalf of a political party which continues to articulate student grievances for their own benefit.

Even in the United Kingdom control over the universities by the UGC has expanded and it has been said that 'the Universities were responsible only to an independent UGC is already dead if not buried.'

The criticism was that the UGC has never given reasons for the way it allocates funds. It has been mentioned that the UGC has to devise a policy with a view to mobilizing higher education as an instrument for national, social and economic renewal.

Today the UGC has to intervene in most matters pertaining to universities. Since the Government remains the main source of funding, it is important that the allocation of the resources be transparent, rational and efficient.

The extent of government involvement in higher education has been exceedingly high, and it has become a part of the political culture of the country. The Government has to intervene in order to ensure a more efficient use of public resources, rather than direct controls, and the country, at this juncture, needs a coherent policy framework for higher education.

New policies in the sphere of higher education needs to be linked to specific national conditions and the policies need to guide long term development with alternative ways of ensuring long term viability and quality.