Higher education reforms

A fortnight ago the Chairman of the National Education Commission presented to the President the ‘National Policy Framework on Higher Education and Technical and Vocational Education’. The report has outlined 102 policy proposals covering all areas of tertiary education including technical and vocational education and training.

It has been customary to appoint commissions, produce reports and present them to the Head of State. What happens afterwards is less known and even the authors of these fine documents forget them with the passage of time. However, the policies presented in the current report should be implemented with no delay for tertiary education is a sphere which should have been reformed much earlier.

It is obvious that certain policies proposed need new legislation or the amending of existing legislation. Understandably it would take time. There are, however, proposals which could be implemented without delay as they do not involve legislative measures.

They include among others those concerned with developing linkages, academic programs, sharing resources, research, innovation and creativity, human resource development among others.

Some of them are quite feasible in the short-term while some are only be pious wishes considering the meagre resources available for the country. Such is the proposal to provide opportunities for higher education for all those seeking such education. Annually around 200,000 sit for the G C E Advanced Level Examination out of which around half qualify for University admission. Of them only 20 percent gain admission to State Universities and a small percentage of the rest are either accommodated at other institutions of tertiary education or go abroad leaving around 75 percent stranded with no way to pursue studies.

It is to cater to these unfortunate students that the National Education Commission has proposed to engage the private sector in opening new institutes of higher education including those engaged in vocational and technical training.

Incidentally this is the most discussed proposal both by the Government and its critics. While the move has to be welcomed it is imperative to implement several other proposals concerning quality assurance, assessment and accreditation prior its implementation.

The already flourishing business of education where higher education institutes spring up like mushrooms courtesy the Board of Investment (which is as far away from education as the earth is from the sky) sans any regulation as to their standards and credibility makes it frightening to think of opening the tertiary education sector to the private sector without due regulation.

As regards the implementation of the non-controversial and feasible proposals referred to earlier there is one prerequisite. That is there should be an end to bureaucratic lethargy and willful delaying.

To take an example from the National Education Commission itself, the report that was made public in June 2010 was prepared a year ago in June 2009, as the publication itself says in its cover. If it took one full year to reach the President of the country how long would it take for it to reach the stakeholders and get implemented?

Problems in the higher education sector would not be solved automatically by opening it for the private sector. Structural deformities in the University system such as outmoded curricula, obsolete teaching methods, lack of research orientation and a research culture, absence of a healthy atmosphere for cultured academic dialogue and discourse due to student violence and a host of other issues need to be resolved for the Universities to be set on a course towards excellence. The NEC policy framework has valuable short-term and long-term proposals to address them.

The Government has declared its intention of making Sri Lanka the Wonder of Asia. One of the most important prerequisites for reaching this goal is the development of a knowledgeable and skilled workforce and the development of R & D to raise the technological level of the labour force.

Therefore Human Resource Development gets priority. In this the higher education and vocational and technical education institutions have a leadership role to play. Implementing the policy proposals of the National Education Commission would go a long way in reaching that goal.