Moulding Sri Lanka’s technical education

Text of speech delivered by Higher Education Minister Prof. Wiswa Warnapala before 100 newly recruited teachers and administrators to the Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education (SLIATE) on July 27 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.

 Though a Technical College was established in 1883 by the British colonial authorities, it remained confined to Colombo was a some kind of an elite school. It functioned in the form of a Government Department, and this orientation, stifled the role of an academic institution. Though there was an expansion of the system of technical education in the 60s, the system, though comprised of several Technical Colleges, did not adjust itself to the changes in the country. While there was a system of Technical Colleges, which came under the purview of the Education and Higher Education Ministry, there were Ministries which established statutory bodies for technical level training in specialized areas.

In this country, at one stage, there were more than 3,000 technical and vocational training programs affiliated to different Ministries and supported by public resources. There was so much confusion as to the nature and content of different courses conducted by different departmental institutions. Most institutions engaged in this kind of training and instruction conducted both Diploma and Certificate level courses, whereas the Higher level courses came to be conducted by the Technical Colleges and Institutes, which came under the purview of the National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA).

The Diploma courses were confined to those students who had obtained four passes at the G.C.E Advanced Level and the idea was to provide an alternative path to those who aspired and failed to get admission to a University in Sri Lanka. It was tied to the question of enrolment. In other words, it was a form of expanding the access to higher educational opportunities. At the lowest level, there were Technical Colleges which conducted Craft and Trade courses, for which the entrance requirement was the G.C.E Ordinary Level. Though, initially, this programme of Technical and Vocational Education, which has not been organized on the basis of a coordinated policy strategy, neglected the fundamental importance of the middle level professional education in the area of technological education in Sri Lanka.

There was a demand for higher level and middle level professional courses in the sphere of technical education, and the courses, which already existed within the then prevailing structure, in terms of their content, was not very professional but the entry requirement for both higher level and middle level courses in the particular field was GCE A/L.

Different dimensions

This sector needs modernization in terms of global developments to educate the youths in the country with employable skills and the production of skills for the economic development of the country. It is only through such a mass of trained skilled personnel that the country’s economic development could be accelerated. If the employment opportunities are not available for such trained personnel in the local labour market, they could look for avenues elsewhere as most of the young men and women look for opportunities abroad. In the course of their search for such opportunities, they, experience terrible hardships. It was therefore necessary to address this question which had its own social dimension, and a foreign policy dimension as well because some young men try to migrate into countries in the West illegally. Yet, another element needed immediate attention was the proliferation of training programs which have not been based on the requirements of the economy.

Taking all these factors into consideration, the Government of the period 1994-2000 wanted to establish a higher level institute of technological studies, more in the nature of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to provide the country with higher level and Middle level technicians; the entire program was organized on the basis of the concept of employability, and also on the basis of the need to expand the access to those students who miss the University with one or two marks.

The SLIATE is now flowering into a centre of excellence in technological studies. This is an excellent middle level organization which can make a tremendous contribution to the development process in the country. It is through this organization that opportunities could be provided to a group of students who, through this middle level qualification, could obtain a good job in a highly competitive job market. The traditional concept of higher education, according to which higher education was confined to the Universities, of the medieval period is undergoing a change, and today, in the global context, higher education includes both the conventional university sector and the non-University tertiary institutions which constitute an essential alternative sector of higher education.

Changing needs

The courses have been structured with a view to responding to the changing needs of the labour market. It is on the basis of this perception that the SLIATE established Advanced Technological Institutes (ATIs) practically in every province, and this organization, at present, manages 18 such Institutes and they offer middle level programs in such areas as;

Accounting, Management, Business Studies, Engineering, Information Technology, Agriculture, English.

This is an attractive sector which falls into this category of non-University tertiary institutions which constitute an important part of the higher education sector. They, therefore, cannot be compared with the universities whose status is higher, and they award degrees whereas the Institutes award diplomas. This division is internationally accepted, and such short-term technological higher education courses were created to meet an economic need of the developed countries; this process began in the 60s and many a developing country had begun to emulate the scheme as it offers a number of advantages.

The development of technology and science demanded a change in the traditional view of higher education; higher educational institutions like the universities were designed to develop and transmit academic knowledge. Middle level institutions like the SLIATE was created for the purpose of providing the country with the higher level and middle level technicians who can combine both scientific and technical knowledge. In addition to the acquisition of a solid, general scientific grounding, it was a form of specific education that represented an intermediate level between engineers and a specialized skilled worker. Sri Lanka needed such a specific system of education which differed from the knowledge and training imparted in the Universities. It has an academic content but the grounding, which it gives at the ATIs, is of practical nature.

A specific education system of this nature was created to meet a demand for training which was largely unheard of in institutions of higher learning. This important aspect has not been understood by a group of students, who think that the HNDE course is superior because of its course content and its prospect for immediate employment; they have been agitating in the past few months requesting us to elevate its status to that of a University status, which we have resisted because it upsets our entire program in the area of middle level professional training. The Government cannot agree with this proposal of the politically-motivated HNDE students because it, both in terms of policy and future expansion of the SLIATE, cannot be conceded as the country, at this stage of her development, needs a SLIATE-oriented structure which can produce a middle level technician who needs to have sufficient knowledge and adequate expertise to be able to make optimum use of the equipment.

Alternative sector institution

This kind of institution, which comes within the category of the alternative sector, is popular in countries such as France, UK, Australia, USA and Canada, and the gross enrollment in this sector exceed 30 percent of the total enrollment in the higher education sector.

In Sri Lanka, the SLIATE institutions enrolled less than 8,500 in 2008, and the Higher Education Ministry proposes to increase it to 10,000 next year. One can see its impact on the issue of the access. The World Bank, which examined the SLIATE before it decided to support the program and its expansion, commented that “the continued occupational relevance of academic programs designed and delivered by the alternative sector institutions is fundamental to the employability of their graduates”.

Several important recommendations have been made to improve the potentiality of the SLIATE institutions. We have already obtained assistance from both Austria and Netherlands to develop the infrastructure at Mattakkuliya and Labuduwa Advanced Technological Institutes; it was a substantial aid package which Sri Lanka got from these two countries in the European Union.

With both Quality Assurance Program and a National Qualification Framework, most of the current ills within the system could be solved. National Qualification Framework is an urgent need as the country has a variety of institutions in both the public and the private sector engaged in the production of qualifications, some of which are freely available in the form of bogus qualifications.

Yet another question is whether they are nationally recognized or internationally recognized, and once a National Qualification Framework is established, bogus institutions engaged in this task is certain to go out of business.

The changes, which we propose to implement in the next few years, must reflect local skills requirements; this can be done by creating new courses or by transforming the existing programs.

In other words, the nature and content of programs should be determined by the requirements of the workplace rather than the traditional academic criteria. A variety of short programs can respond to the need for different types of skills, and such skills can only be produced by Institutes which come within the category of the alternative sector.

Students at a Technical College. Picture by Ranjith Jayaweera

This institution, though not a University, is an academic institution, which is also engaged in generation and transmission of knowledge. I want all of you, who are receiving the letters of appointment today, to remember that this is a world dominated by knowledge. In the modern world, which is now going through a process of globalization, institutions of higher learning have the main responsibility for equipping individuals with advanced knowledge and skills required for various positions in a country’s government. I would expect all of you to be good teachers who consistently and constantly had to renew their knowledge so that you can become an active participant in the country’s intellectual community. Much depends on your intellectual status, it is on the basis of your intellectual attainments that you can command respect and acceptance among the students community, to whom you provide some kind of leadership.

Golden rules

Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, as soon as he was elected the President of France, addressed a 10 page letter to all the teachers in France, spelling out the role and duties of a teacher. It had certain things applicable to the parents as well. In concluding my address, I would like to quote President Sarkozy, ‘Respect is what has to underpin all education. The teacher’s respect for the pupil, that of parents for their children, of pupils for their teachers and children for their parents, respect for others and self-respect that is what education has to generate. If there is no longer enough respect in our society, I am convinced that primary reason is a problem of education and upbringing.

I want our children to learn politeness, open-mindedness and tolerance, which are all forms of respect. We have a duty to teach them that everything is not of equal worth, that all civilizations are founded on a scale of values, that the pupil is not the equal of the teacher.

We have a duty to teach them that no one can live without constraints and that there can be no freedom without rules.”