The Politics of Education and Unemployment
Sajith de Mel
Education: The phenomena of unemployment has historically been
a fashionable theme relentlessly subjected to dialogue in academic
spheres and by almost all political parties that intended to gain power
since post independence. One may construe this as a beggar’s wound
universally exploited by politicians to gain political mileage
especially in the epoch of frenzied presidential polls.
In a way, what is wrong in it when even President Bill Clinton sang
the same old song to advance himself from being the Governor of remote
Arkansas to be the 42nd President of United States?
Like many Sri Lankan politicians who find the non-alignment between
education and unemployment extremely mesmerising, even the U.S President
pledged that by year 2000 the American students will be made competent
in subjects such as Mathematics, Science and English, so that they may
be well-equipped to be productively employed in the modern economy.
higher standards
Regardless of the campaign commitment, a research conducted in 2002
suggested that unless the nation
(U.S) is able to bring even its least able workers to higher standards
of education and skills, it is likely that average rates of unemployment
will rise. Therefore, it becomes blatant that skills mismatch, while
being a global dilemma adds glamour to political campaigns.
Three hypotheses compete to profess the phenomena of unemployment in
Sri Lanka. They are skills mismatch hypothesis, queuing hypothesis and
stringent labour market regulations. Skills mismatch states that the
education system produces skills that are not job market oriented.
Queuing hypothesis argues that Sri Lanka’s unemployment is voluntary
because youth wait for the so called “good” jobs. The other is the
rigidities in the labour market resulting from outdated labour
legislation.
Nevertheless, even after three decades of the above findings, it is
quite pathetic that the above variables leading to unemployment have not
been effectively arrested and countered.
The above elucidates the lack of attempt to harmonize the educational
policies with that of the labour market requirements by successive
governments in power. Therefore, it is worthwhile to probe into the
history and the political-economy that led to skills mismatch and
queuing into public sector jobs.
Under the British rule, English was made the language of government
and law courts. Following this, the government undertook the spread of
English education and established several colleges where the education
was imparted in the English language. This enabled the British to source
English educated local labour to execute colonial civil administrative
services.
The colonial government of Ceylon, like other colonial governments,
was mainly in the hands of European officials. Their numbers were small
and too expensive to be imported.
Therefore, the lower administrative jobs were staffed by English
speaking Ceylonese. The Coffee boom, together with the growth in tea
plantations, stimulated a demand for English speaking employees in
commercial houses, banks, wholesale and retail stores and in the
government services and professions like law and medicine.
Therefore, we see that in the pre-independence era there was perfect
harmonisation of education policies with the labour market requirements
and never was the phenomenon of skills mismatch evident as the colonial
demand for English educated labour was perfectly matched through the
English educated few.
Origins
However, we discover the origins of the ideology of white collar jobs
(good jobs) and the blue collar jobs (bad jobs) for the first time in
history as the educated saw getting employed in the government sector a
prestige.
However this did not lead to a queuing situation for good jobs, as
there were limited demands for English speaking labour on the one hand,
while on the other, the supply of English speaking labour was limited to
an elite few who could send their sons to British founded schools for
their secondary education and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge
for their tertiary education.
However, in the mid 19th century we find the origins of misalignment
between the education system and the job market. In 1942, the free
education system was introduced while the national language was made the
medium of instruction in place of English.
The usage of the national language as the media of instruction in
schools sowed the seeds of skills mismatch as the government sector
demanded English educated for its civil administration while the
suppliers of labour were educated in the national languages.
Also there was an influx of students for education due to the policy
of free education. This created a situation of excess supply of labour
thus giving the fragrances of the queuing hypothesis.
During the colonial period access to western education was an
important weapon in the hands of the colonial bourgeoisies in order to
maintain their elite position. At the end of the 19th century, the
Sinhala-Buddhist middle classes were looking forward for their own
modern educational institutions.
In 1956, with the introduction of the “Sinhala only Act” several
steps were taken to expand the resources allocated to State education.
Among them were the establishing of a wide network of State schools,
providing education free of charge up to the university level, switching
the education to national language at the university level and expanding
the intake to the university in liberal arts.
The large scale intervention by the government in the education
sector led it to a monopolistic status in the education market. Data for
2001 explains that of the total number of schools in the island (10548),
93 per cent (9887) were in the hands of the government while, 0.73 per
cent (78) were private schools and 5.5 per cent (583) were pirivena
schools. Data by student population for 2001 explains that of the 4.3 mn
total student population, 4.1 mn study in government schools, while only
0.97 mn study in private schools.
Enrolments
With the increasing numbers of school enrolments, the government
machinery became incapable of maintaining the qualitative standards as a
result of dismal investments on education.
The expenditure on education as a percentage of the Gross Domestic
Product revolves at a low figure of 2.01 per cent-2.69 per cent.
Inadequate exposure to English in schools and universities formed a
cluster of educated youth devoid of sufficient English knowledge not
demanded by the private sector.
As such we find that today’s unemployment is a function of
educational politics played by governments since colonial times.
Ever since Sinhala was made compulsory for government jobs, Tamils
realised learning Tamil was a futile exercise. Tamils traditionally
placed great emphasis in the education of their children in part because
of the solid school system set up by the Christian missionaries.
Sinhalese hardliners allegedly attributed the high proportions of Tamils
in the universities due to collusions between Tamil teachers and
students.
The politicisation of the government machinery required political
influence to gain employment in the public sector. Education was no more
seen as the pre-requisite for gainful employment in the public sector.
MPs were given powers to select candidates to fill up limited
government vacancies. A letter of recommendation from a local MP was
made a pre-requisite for a government job and often the lists of
government vacancies were sent to the MPs.
This served as an effective mechanism for preventing those entering
the state sector that held different political ideologies. With this
kind of practice the public sector got infiltrated by political puppets
which ultimately led to the collapse of the public sector while
countless frustrated educated migrated.
During this era more than 1.2 mn Sri Lankans seeking regular work was
unable to find it. At that time the private sector was not large enough
to accommodate the large numbers of unemployed and the plea from the
opposition for a change received support from the youth.
Rebellion
The new regime of 1977 was instrumental in dismantling the
long-practiced welfare state and introducing open economy developmental
model. With the liberalisation of trade, the private sector was seen as
the engine of growth. By 1982, the total unemployment rate dropped to
near 18 per cent and during the first term of this era, more than half a
million jobs were created in five years.
But still the eighteen per cent unemployment rate was troublesome.
Much of the unemployment and underemployment was structural and it
stemmed from a longstanding mismatch between skills that a modernising
economy needed and those provided by workers seeking employment.
Further, the Sinhala-only education excluded many applicants from
internationally oriented and tourist-sector positions that required
English. The second term of this regime was one of the most turbulent
periods in Sri Lanka’s modern history. The out-break of the Tamil
militancy together with the Marxist youth insurrection brought the
country to a virtual standstill during 1987-89.
All forms of governance and law and order were crippled during this
time resulting in a near state of anarchy. The rebellion was mostly led
by disadvantaged youth from rural areas of the country, especially the
Southern province, where unemployment has traditionally been highest.
Youth unrest was also a contributory factor in the Northern
secessionist conflict which began in the early 1980s and continues to
date. Tamil militancy in the North-East together with the Marxist
resurrection in the south made the private sector lose their confidence
in the stability of the economy.
All universities in the south were closed most of the time from 1987
through 1989. Closing meant that the supply of newly trained personel
virtually dried up in medicine, engineering and other fields requiring a
university degree.
Unemployed and underemployed youth are prime recruiting targets for
militant groups. Some years later a report issued by a commission
strongly indicated the mismatch between employment opportunities and
education being provided to the most volatile segments of the society.
Irrespective of the opening up of the economy in 1977 with the view
of enabling the private sector to play a lead role in generating
employment opportunities, the “wait and see” approach of the private
sector slowed the expansion of the same.
After July 1983, about 15,000 factory workers, 3,500 plantation
workers, 10,000 self-employed persons lost their jobs immediately as a
result of the riots. Contraction of the tourist industry did cost at
least 30,000 more. Government figures in 1982 projected job creation
rate at or above 200,000 per year, reducing unemployment to about 3% of
the labour force.
However due to the volatile environment, by 1988 unemployment topped
to the one million mark, and virtually all the ground that had been
gained by the open economy reforms was lost. This made the successive
governments to take a lead role absorbing the unemployed graduates to
state sector as promised by them in their political campaigns.
This signaled the commitment by the successive governments to provide
the unemployed graduates employment in the State sector. This again led
to the queuing of graduates to state sector jobs which we call the
queuing hypothesis.
Irrespective of the demand for English educated youth by the private
sector which continuously holds responsible the education system for
skills mismatch and the queuing of graduates to public sector jobs due
to their inability to meet the language requirements of the private
sector, the politicians of successive governments have been turning a
blind eye to this fact.
Data for 2005 with respect to government schools explains that three
or more subjects for at least one grade are taught in English medium in
362 schools distributed throughout the island, while 9325 (95.9 per
cent) are single medium schools.
Data also explains that less than 1 per cent of the students (33795)
study in English medium in any grade, while 73.6 per cent (2902157)
study in Sinhalese, 25.5 per cent (1006460) in Tamil.
The above data explains the approach taken by the successive
governments to counter the gap between aspirations of the private sector
and the education system. Another factor that leads to skills mismatch
is the lack of computer literacy. Computers offer exciting approaches to
teaching and learning that was not even dreamt of twenty years ago.
However, for a school to have access to internet facilities the
basics such as electricity, computers, land phones and internet
connection is a must.
Data for 2006 explains that, of the 9851 schools surveyed, only 76
per cent had electricity connection, 26.2 per cent land lines, 6.2 per
cent internet connection, 4.1 per cent email facilities, 29.6 per cent
desktop computers, 0.5 per cent laptops and 2.3 per cent had multimedia
projectors.
Therefore we find that irrespective of the inspiring speeches made by
the politicians thus promising to align the education system with that
of the labour market demands, in reality much has not been done.
Policy making in Sri Lanka has typically been geared by ulterior
political motives thus making the innocent general public the victims of
such. Many tend to blame the education system for the prevalent skills
mismatch.
However, one should appreciate that the Sri Lankan education system
was once regarded as the most advanced in the Global South. Political
conflicts imposed a cost on the education system that is difficult to
measure thus transferring such into severe labour market costs.
Therefore, it is high time to re-align the education system with that of
the job market requirements. |