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by Dr. H. L. Obeysekera

The social awareness of the objectives of tertiary education is extremely low. The student who complete the school education take every possible measures to enter into university education amidst great competition, but not according to the wisher of the candidates but according to the selection criteria or else to characteristic courses that are traditionally introduced under science, art and commerce streams. The next goal of the students who fail to secure a place in the university will be either advanced technical institutes or technical education institutes or vocational training institutes. Sometimes specific agrarian institutes specialised in certain professional fields. Even though all these come under tertiary education, they aim at catering to the labour requirement at various levels.

But there is not acceptable co-ordination among these institutes, or else may be the obscurity of the objectives of the courses have hindered the co-ordination of these. Under the circumstances the majority of students who join tertiary education due to competition may have stepped in without any purpose or aim. Since there is no inter-relationship among these courses, programs of the same level may be followed at different stages and the inability to select the most suitable would result in waste of time and re-eduction of opportunities to progress in knowledge and skills at various levels with a clear goal in mind.

The monotony of the vocational courses that exist would be a hindrance in achieving vocational variety. Thereby the future labour market will be rather homogeneous. If this institution is not corrected a lot of misunderstanding may result in regarding the aims of institute and courses. Therefore, sometimes the course structure of the above institutes with remain as same for a long-time. Due to unnecessary competition and unsuitable training of labourers it would be difficult to meet the annual demand for skilled personnel.

This would result at times in the discord among courses at the university level and at other times discrepancies in obtaining accreditation for technical and technological courses or in underestimating such courses.

The efforts to maintain relationship with socially acceptable courses or to obtain equal standard or higher recognition of such institutes can be seen. Eg. to obtain equal accreditation for HNDC and HNDA with B.Com conducted as a tertiary education program, problems regarding B.Sc. (Eng) NDT (Eng), trend to centralise the HNDE (Eng) and efforts to enter into the university set up, problems regarding employment opportunities for NDT (Agri) and other professional agriculture courses, and continuous requests for equal accreditation for certain national level diploma course and degree courses.

No clear analysis is made on the level of acceptability of courses conducted at the tertiary education level around the country at present. Nature of acceptance or decisive measurement have not been introduced yet. Therefore it is clear that the above problem has aggravated. Eventhough, all the tertiary education courses conducted by various ministries and department are vocational, the objectives of these are problematic. As there is no acceptances of a courses conducted by particular institute by another and with the increase in social response to traditional standard courses the tendency to build up a labour generation with no future aim is further unavoidable.

Therefore, by introducing the levels of acceptability government departments or ministries of even the private sector should enlighten the youth who enter tertiary eduction. This introduction may be a solution for the great competition in entering universities. Countries like India, Japan and Australia where tertiary education is well planned, definite solutions had been arrived at by tertiary educational reform plans. Strong relationship are built between courses and even at the tertiary level various educational standards are introduced.

Thereby, the right to select a course according to the knowledge and skill of the student is secured. The disorganised nature of tertiary education should be corrected. The skill level of needed for a particular vocation should be determined. Suitable courses and objective should identified. Evaluation of the relative skills is also important for which criteria should be identified. Opportunities should be given to recognise courses at various tertiary education levels. As a result the relationship between courses would be strengthened.

Thereby, courses could be selected to suit ones ability and convenience.Then the problem of the institute that conducts the course will be reduced. Problems such as undue recognition or underestimation will not crop up. If the requirement at each educational level is fulfilled the right to gain high qualification at any level would be ensured. Correct planning should be made for the co-ordination of institutes. The ultimate result is the reduction of the competition for university entrance, and tertiary eduction would be selected with a correct conception of the vocational education opportunities.

Eventhough the tertiary education reforms, of today are seemingly complicated, the importance of introducing them methodically to the society, is more significant at present than in the past. The need of the hour is public awareness, patronise and constructive response for such reforms.

(The writer is deputy Director General (Institutional Affairs) Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technical Education.) (Concluded)

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