University education

Is there a need for novel options?

by Prof. Upali VIDANAPATHIRANA

Is the ‘economic miracle’ another political slogan? Should not people of this country have dreams of doubling Sri Lanka’s rate of economic growth and per capita income? Should not Sri Lanka strive to achieve such a dream by mobilising all her energy? Internally, Sri Lanka has the capacity to achieve this miracle provided she can set her priorities right.

Looking outward, there is much to be learnt from countries such as South Korea and Taiwan where miracles have been achieved. In fact, we need not go that far for inspiration. Today an ‘economic miracle’ is taking place right on our doorstep across the Palk Strait. Up until the late 1980s, India was considered a country that could never overcome her under-developed state.

Her growth rate was so sluggish that it was called “Hindu Rate of Growth”.

However, during the past 15 years she has managed to reverse this trend, almost doubling her rate of growth.

The simple truth is that all the above mentioned countries have made bold decisions concerning certain important spheres. First, they removed the roadblocks of internal political unrest. Second, they developed policy guidelines and stuck to them. Third, they took courageous steps with respect to the development of human resources to meet the demand for skills which are necessary for speedier growth. Fourth, they moved away from parochial political ideologies to socio-political pragmatism. Sri Lanka regrettably, missed so many opportunities in all these spheres since the 1950s due to the lack of foresight and courage to make bold decisions on all these fronts.

Today, Sri Lanka is placed in a much better position. Sri Lanka’s protracted internal strife is a thing of the past. The country is politically stable and economically recovering. Her successes in these spheres have galvanised the thinking ‘we can do’ among the citizenry of this country. Many of us would like to disassociate from those who say why things are not possible; a syndrome that has to be eradicated if we are to create the conditions necessary to make this country achieve a ‘miracle’.

The country has a pragmatic and farsighted leadership.

However, the most important impediment to development is the lack of the right type of people in right places in right quantities in the middle level of administration.

The human resources development strategies of the countries cited above showed that they gave priority to building the stock of human capital. They sent their best talents to the best universities in the world. They also established world class universities that could contribute to research and scholarship.

Economic principles

This statement of demand for support is not based on pure rhetoric, but empirical and theoretical evidence. Using simple economic principles, if Sri Lanka’s growth rate is to be raised to a sustainable level of 9-10 percent per annum, she requires a much higher level of national savings, investments and a desirable ratio of capital output.

A business-as-usual model, where the national savings and investment remain at less than 18 percent and 26 percent of GDP cannot be effective unless there is a massive inflow of foreign direct investments. Such investments have to be non-speculative, long-term, of green field type, and sustainable to spark real growth of the economy.

The conditions necessary for accelerating economic growth no doubt involve, (a) investments on infrastructure (air and sea ports, road structure, power and telecommunications), (b) increasing productivity levels of resource use, (c) institutional reforms to remove bureaucratic red tape and provide correct mix of incentives, (d) and long-term capacity building for a knowledge-driven economy. All four pillars play more or less equal roles in relation to their contribution to economic progress of the country. Infrastructure alone has very little meaning when institutional structures are not present.

Similarly, institutional structures are inactive when personnel with skills, capacities together with proper incentive mechanisms are missing. This is what the Japanese talk of in terms of “boxes” and “content”. By establishing (structures) boxes without (skilled people and programs) content, Sri Lanka may not be able to achieve what she intends to accomplish. For us, content would mean the right people who can make optimal use of the boxes that we build. It is in this context that development of higher order skills becomes inevitable.

It is futile for us to expect a miracle to emerge from miraculous discoveries of oil, gold or gas. Sri Lanka has to rediscover her own vistas in the knowledge-driven sectors. The five hubs outlined in the Mahinda Chinthana spell out an essentially service-oriented strategy. Sri Lanka must identify those fast growing tertiary sector activities of the economy and discover the demand for knowledge workers to accelerate its pace of growth. Services such as finances, business process management, logistical support for sea and aviation ports and travel and tourism operations require skilled workers to take them to a higher plateau of growth.

There are many such spheres that require correct combinations of knowledge inputs. The country’s university system has an indisputable responsibility to produce the right types of graduates in the right quantities for the employers to engage them without any hesitation. Unfortunately, the image of university education today is not inspiring as it scares the average citizenry, policy planners and prospective employers of both private and public sectors. This negative image is engendered by a small minority of students and their political masters and supported by unsolicited publicity given to them by the media.

Knowledge workers

Coming back to the knowledge economy, it is envisaged that the future drivers of economic development would be knowledge workers. The skills and imagination of knowledge workers will change the direction of future Sri Lanka.

In an economic system that is based on knowledge, higher education in general and university education in particular becomes crucial because of its contribution to the generation and dissemination of new knowledge. However, Sri Lanka’s rank in respect of higher education in the world competitive index is 81 out of 125 countries. This has to be compared with those of our neighbours like India (49), Malaysia (32) and Thailand (49) with whom we will be competing in knowledge-driven economic activities.

It is in this context that age participation rates should be raised substantially to reach 40-50 percent. The relevant ratio is 12 percent for India, which she strives to augment to 15 percent during the Eleventh Five Year Plan by expanding opportunities in the State and other higher educational institutions. If we use Sri Lankan figures excluding the external degree program, our challenge is even more. In Malaysia this rate is 30 percent.

We all know that the total expenditure allocated for higher education in Sri Lanka has been low. This is partly because higher education as at today is the sole responsibility of the State. Ironically, both education and health are soft targets that are subject to austerity measures of governments around the world. Given the high budget deficit regime we have been experiencing for the past decade, it is natural that substantial investment by the State is untenable. It is in this context that private-public partnerships like in the case of India should be explored.

Meanwhile, the contention that education is a public good has to continue; it is because of this reason that the countries listed above have injected massive financial support to finance university education. For instance, according to the 11th Five year plan, India has an ambitious target of allocating six percent of GDP to strengthen the education sector while its impact will be felt on the number of universities established anew.

It is projected that if the current trend continues, the Indian IT-ITES sector alone will need one million additional personnel during the next five years who will generate export income of about USD 86 billion by 2012. This is about twice Sri Lanka’s total GDP. What we Sri Lankans can learn from them is that we too must be ready to meet the human resources needs of the ever expanding sectors like IT-BPO and tourism.

Interesting insight

The story of Malaysia gives us another interesting insight with respect to planning for higher education. Between 1966 and 1980 her allocation for public investments to cover education, agricultural development, housing and health increased 10 times in real terms. However, with the economic crisis in 1986 further expansion of public funds was no longer feasible and the government turned to the private sector. In 1996 the Private Higher Education Institution Act was passed which helped international private investors to establish partnerships to help generate the human resources needs. This was accompanied by policy guidelines to regulate their operations and ensure quality and social equity. Today Malaysia is in a relatively formidable position internationally because of the far-sighted changes they introduced to their higher education system.

Today only about 16 percent of those eligible to enter universities in the country secure seats in the 15 national universities. This number is said to be around three percent of the age participation rate. Thus, a large number of young people who are qualified to enter the university system of the country wait outside the system while those who enter the system waste their time engaging in unproductive political expediencies.

Three points have emerged from this discussion so far. First, in this era of the knowledge economy, what matters most is the willingness to invest on higher education. This is vital because a skilled workforce will be the main driver of economic growth in the coming decade. However, the current supply of skills by the university system will not be adequate in terms of quantity and quality. Second, education in general is a public good where the State has to play a pivotal role as an allocator of resources as well as regulator of its future direction.

This is because the production of new knowledge and skills by the university system has to be relevant to the country’s priorities both in terms of content and quality. Third, given the resource limitations arising from the point of view of fiscal austerity, it is necessary for the State to look for alternative modes of financing which would include public-private as well as public-public partnerships with national as well as international players. In this backdrop the novel options to improve the output and quality of university education has become unavoidable.

The writer is the Vice Chancellor of the Open University of Sri Lanka.