Suggestions for development of higher education in Sri Lanka - Part II:

Better prospects for students

Dr Tilokasundari KARIYAWASAM

In Sri Lanka there is the need for radical reform of higher education in the context of its socio-economic-educational developments. The most powerful factor in Sri Lanka has been extraordinary expansion of secondary education in recent decades. The development constitutes the major factor behind the strongly felt need for qualitative and structural transformation of higher education.

Continued from yesterday

Universities should be an integrated system of higher education. To this day universities are recognized as independent, autonomous, self-contained institutions, academically free and having no duty to link themselves with other institutions. With the introduction of industries, science and its application, technical colleges and vocational institutions will be needed in great number in Sri Lanka. They should come under higher education as in Japan, Egypt, Brazil and England Universities.

It is only recently it has been realized technical and vocational education competitiveness, which is palpably seen as evils in the modern world, the only way to recopy is by an increase in student numbers to higher education, by including technical and vocational education under the higher education.

Diversity of courses and qualifications is necessary. The danger of specialization once a student enters the university is real. In Sri Lanka, where a high degree of specialization in a group of three subjects being very early at the age of 16, while they are still at school, the danger of narrowness has been even greater.

The need to widen the scope of first degree courses especially in the first year should be recognized. The tendency in many countries has been to broaden rather than confine their requirements for a first degree. One recipe is to multiply the options, giving the students a still wider and more attractive range of subjects from which to choose the required number and more syllabi have to be worked out for degree interdisciplinary in concepts involving an interrelated study of two or three subjects right up to the first degree examination. It is easier to invent such combinations. Our specialization has to be teaseled somehow.

Closer cooperation

Although three or four-year degree will remain at the heart of the tending programme of universities, more one and two-year qualifications are needed. They may be an end in themselves, but may also form the basis for further education. Close matching courses with the requirements of national and local markets is required. The local dimensions in higher education will be important not only in ensuring a continuum of opportunity for students, but in helping to gear the higher education system more closely to work. There is the need for closer cooperation and collaboration between schools, institutions and universities.

Joint degree which includes a language or an element of management studies are increasing popular in developed countries.

Institutions need to take note, in planning courses, of the changing needs of employers. Many jobs require flexibility and a wide range of knowledge and skills than before. There are also clear requirements for one or two-year advanced vocational courses, to meet specific employer requirements courses. Planners in higher education must be alert to trends in the labour market and be quite clear about the outcome. What employer will look for in their graduate recruits will be English, Language competence, foreign language skills, numeracy, data appreciation, team work, the ability to tackle unfamiliar problems and the desire to continue to learn. We consider that a profile of attribute, such as this is something which higher education programmes, might reasonably be expected for deliver.

Economic growth

To meet the situation of expanding enrollment higher education should introduce correspondence and part-time courses. We should recognize that higher education should not be the privilege of a specific age (18-25 years), but that in the future many more students in higher education will probably be studying part-time and a large proportion will be older students returning to update their qualifications or renew their intellectual vitality. The Open University can play a vital role in this sphere. Universities will have to develop links easily with other parts of higher education through part-time and correspondence courses which should be given the same status as full time education.

Development of Technical Education should be connected to industrial and economic growth. The planning of technical manpower is not a fool proof process and it needs continuous review and correction at the appropriate time.

New dimensions

The problems of rural development and its main occupation of agriculture should give rise to some interesting development in higher education. Agriculture, a source of livelihood and a way of life for 80 percent of the population is at the beginning of a profound transformation. The recent discovery and use of high yielding and early maturing verities of food plants is a major biological broad through in agriculture. This agricultural transformation, named ‘green revolution’ has heightened the prospect of developing agriculture, as a modern and viable sector of the economy.

The use of high yielding varieties, fertilizers and pesticides and the expansion of irrigation facilities have added new dimensions to the opportunities of agriculture. This technological advance however, requires the urgent development of other facilities, such as processing, storage, marketing, credit, land tenure, co-operatives, small scale industries and education, without which the full benefit of the technological break through may not be realized.

Unemployed population

The vast underemployed and unemployed population is potentially a powerful source of productive energy. The technology for raising levels of production and standards of living exists, but it needs to be adapted and applied to the rural sector. What is needed is a concerted effort, supported by the development of appropriate structures and institutions. This is an urgent need in higher education. Provision of varied agricultural courses in higher education institutions is a must. An agricultural University should be established and in Technical and Vocational institutions, diplomas, post-diploma and certificate courses of one to three years duration can be developed.

Specialization or breadth. There remain a need for a smaller flow of highly educated specialists. They will often be employed in professional forms. Some will be in large organizations, but others will work independently as consultants, or in small forms. But today the demand is that universities should produce the specialist immediately available. It may spell disaster if universities will not do this job, other institutions of higher education will have to do it.

There should be at least one university which is unique in its concept, relevant and dynamic in its functioning and devoted to the pursuit of excellence in the creation of knowledge and culture. It should have a national character, broader than the concerns and horizons of other universities and be able to compete with any international university of excellence.