Quality of undergraduate quality has declined
Tertiary Education in Sri Lanka
Relevance in the Global Context
Author : Prof. Wiswa Warnapala
Sponsor : Distance Education Project Ministry of Higher Education
Price : Rs. 600
Pages : 214
Professor Wiswa Warnapala, the Minister of Higher Education, in his
collection of articles woven around University education, learning and
discipline, is of the opinion that the quality of undergraduate
education in the Sri Lankan Universities has declined in the last few
decades in spite of an enormous amount of money being spent on the
maintenance and teaching in the whole university system.
Prof. Warnapala compiling his oral and written presentations at the
exclusively higher forums of learning and teaching has emerged with a
comprehensive study of the system of higher education and its social and
political relevance apart from its inherent academic importance.
The content as well as the tone of his writing is impregnated with
the erudity of a learned writer and the propensity of a seasoned
politician. The author delves deeply into the subject that is his
speciality which is today an area that forms a forum for discussion both
at political and academic level.
So the author leaves no area in this field untouched without focusing
his scholarly research and social attention on the issues which he is
bound to touch upon as his office as well as his discipline demands a
study at the highest possible level.
Technical education
His main emphasis is on the aspect of technical education in the
stream of higher education which he says needs a new approach to suit
the demands of changing technology. One area which he considered as
necessary to qualify itself for a new approach is that it should develop
in partnership with industry.
The work had gone a long way in this regard to diversify their
tertiary education in response to the increasing social demand. Towards
this end, it needs progress and approach to a research culture which
should form the basis of University education system.
This requires expansion of technical education in the country. The
writer identifies Sri Lanka as one of the comparatively stable and
developed human resource basis that comes into existence on the basis of
the social demand model of education.
However, in the absence of a learning culture being developed within
the University system, the quality of undergraduate education had
visibly declined. Even if there is an expansion of Universities for over
a period of five decades, there is no corresponding change in the field
of technical education.
Therefore, he suggests that new opportunities for growth and
development of education need to be based on the principles of public
service, and reforms should be in conformity with that development.
Intellectual culture
In a speech of the Importance of Technical Education, he stresses the
point that making adjustments in the educational system should suit the
specific economic and social needs within which context both technical
and vocational education need be expanded. In his convocation address at
the Sabaragamuwa University, he emphasized the point that an
intellectual culture needed to be restored in the Universities.
The challenge before us is to convert those higher seats of learning
to find ways and means of enhancing the quality and relevance of
University education. In contrast, the early advocates of the University
of Ceylon in the 1940s spoke of the need to restore indigenous culture
in order for one to become a complete person, as he needs to grow up in
a culture.
Ragging and unrest
In the past, when formulating an educational policy, emphasis was
laid on the production of personnel for clerical, educational and
professional positions which guaranteed the smooth functioning of the
colonial or semi-colonial rule in the island.
This trend has now shifted for a vocational training with a view to
produce higher level technicians who require a specific training leading
to the production of a highly skilled worker.
That requires for the vocational training institutions to establish a
close relationship with the corporate world which in turn demands a
diversification of tertiary institutions to meet the growing social
demand for higher education.
Anyone interested in measuring the degree of unrest in the social and
intellectual conduct among the University students today, this
collection of speeches by the Minister of Higher Education, the most
suitable and best equipped to speak on the subject is worth reading. It
carries 22 clever presentations by the Minister.
- E.M.G. Edirisinghe |
