Knowledge societies and societal response to emerging challenges:

Role of the OUSL

Prof. Upali Vidanapathirana

The development priorities of the third world are undergoing a sea change in their approaches, strategies and practices in relation to the development of human capital on the one hand and the use of technology to create knowledge driven economies on the other. There is an agreement that skill development in its total form is an essential element to kick-start socio-economic take-off and also to sustain its momentum. The nexus between skill upgradation and socio-economic development is clear and well-established in the development literature.

This nexus between knowledge and wellbeing gives rise to another debate on the development of knowledge societies and societal response to knowledge development. Knowledge development can no longer be a monopoly of one individual, one agency or one group of providers. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders.

Open University of Sri Lanka

The thirst for knowledge at different levels increases in geometric progression. This is because at an individual level more people seek knowledge necessary for career progress while at an organizational level the need for high quality work force also increases the demand for knowledge workers. On the other hand, educationists and practitioners of knowledge development and delivery are eagerly waiting to contribute to this process.

Economic progress

Educational economists have found a clear association between public investments on primary education and social wellbeing. The early writings of Amathya Sen and many others on Sri Lanka's success in human development have dealt with these benefits extensively. However, the association between public investments on higher education and societal benefits appear to be unconvincing although when economies are driven by knowledge, the preponderance of this knowledge on overall economic progress should necessarily be significant.

Hence, at every level educational opportunities geared to uplift essential competencies and skills are now considered important not only for social upliftment but also for economic growth. This is because the value creation ability of knowledge workers is much higher than the unskilled workers. In Sri Lanka where the growth thrust comes more from productive services sectors than secondary and primary sectors this emphasis on knowledge workers is all the more important.

School leavers

We require teachers, nurses, clerical staff who could think differently to change the value chain. We need knowledge workers to help boost our exchange earnings in the remittances market. We need knowledge workers in the tourism sector who could think differently to sustain our potential in the travel and hotels industry. We also need workers in the factories and farmers who are amenable to the changing market conditions to compete with other producers in Vietnam and China and to outmaneuver business related threats.

Therefore the knowledge economy project of this country must be unique to Sri Lanka capable of servicing knowledge creation that is consonant with the country's developmental needs. The capital constraint makes the traditional option of bricks and motor universities exclusively devoted to look after an elite segment of school leavers entering conventional institutions prohibitive. Similar structures perhaps may suit postgraduate research universities engaged in research and development work better.

Table 1- Student admission data for the period 2006-2011 Notes; (1), 2008 student numbers are adjusted to remove student ship holders as no awards ceremony was held in the year 2008. (2) 2011 figures are estimated based on 2011 3rd quarter figure of 33678.

Table 2 -Student output data on undergraduate programmes Notes: Excludes the postgraduate programmes which form a major share of the OUSL's graduate output.

A simple calculation would show us the colossal investments necessary to accommodate more than 100,000 GCE 'A' level students acquiring pass marks and wanting to enter the 14 conventional universities. To accommodate all of them would mean an additional budget of approximately four times, merely to pay salaries and wages of staff (assuming that qualified staff is available within the country). Cost of infrastructure and consumables would make a similar project inconceivable.

The second challenge is to provide opportunities for the large number of school going children dropping out of the system. The majority joining the labour force require a viable option to fulfill their higher education dream in order to make the knowledge economy project a reality. This is because educational needs are not on-off but life long.

Sri Lanka has to find novel options to facilitate learning needs of these life-long learners. Most developed countries are especially concerned about this category to make them more competitive in their workplaces because its impact is directly on productivity enhancement. Knowledge, unlike other products changes faster and hence requires inputs to help knowledge upgradation. These are emerging market needs that we seemed to have failed to grasp clearly.

This dilemma of optimizing cost implication of mass education has been examined under the concept of iron triangle of university education. Here it is postulated that increased access is presumed to lower quality of outcomes or conversely increase total cost of production. The parameters applicable to the conventional community model of university education shows that quality teaching depends on facilities to provide infrastructure where students and teachers are provided with residential ambiance with good libraries, research labs etc., enabling them to interact freely in their search for knowledge.

This model can accommodate a small number of students. It signifies a colossal cost burden on the exchequer that make funding university education a nightmare. Fortunately today this factor of high cost option has been addressed successfully in both developed and developing countries utilizing open distance learning (ODL) technologies. The Open University in the United Kingdom (OUUK) revolutionized high quality distance education and emerged among the top five universities in 2005 in terms of world ranking.

Some of the other major success stories include the Open University of Malaysia (OUM), the Open University of Hong Kong and the Open University of South Korea. These universities have carefully balanced the access-quality-cost axes of the iron triangle to the satisfaction of learners and employers. It is within this context that the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) was established in 1980 to provide a viable alternative route to pursue the higher educational dreams of learners.

The societal response to the OUSL experiments has been extremely positive during the past three years. This is elucidated in our admissions that are projected to exceed 35,000 by December 30, 2011. The increase of student numbers showed above has been broadbased and hence inclusive to cover age, language, ethnic and geographic boundaries. In terms of geographic distribution for instance, the study centres have recorded an annual increase of student numbers exceeding 45 percent in 2010. See table1

The four faculties of the OUSL, i.e., Education, Engineering Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences and Natural Sciences offer more than 60 study programmes catering to different educational and skill development needs of potential learners scattered throughout the country. Six (6) Regional Centres and eighteen (18) study centres in different provinces and districts cater to the needs of these learners.

The study programmes offered at different levels pave the way for learners to start at foundation levels and acquire credits so that they could collect marketable qualifications subsequently.

It also facilitates lateral entry so that learners can join study programmes at different levels if they possess qualifications acceptable to the Senate of the OUSL. The recently publicized national qualification framework would make this process easier. At this years convocation 750 graduates, 74 postgraduate diploma holders, 65 masters degree holders and 3 PhDs are conferred degrees by the University.

It must be noted that the centre network is managed by a dedicated team of contract staff. These centres have ventured to offer demand driven short courses tailor-made to fulfill the regional requirements. They include language courses (Tamil, Sinhala and English), IT courses and other courses like Auto-CAD to provide much needed skill upgradation inputs to local communities. These learners who follow short-courses are not counted as regular students.

Award ceremonies

The procedure adapted by the university provides for exit facilities at different levels to adjust to family and employment commitments of learners. Every year the university conducts award ceremonies in the regions where thousands of learners exit after completing certificate, advanced certificate and diploma programmes to join the employment market. Many of them get admitted later to continue their further studies.

During the past three years we have been conducting trace studies on the day of convocation to ascertain the employment record of our students. The tracer study in 2009 revealed that more than 80 percent of our graduates were employed. The thin-sample survey covering 600 awardees in 2010 showed that about 67 percent of our graduates were employed. Plans are afoot to cover the entire population of graduands this year to examine their employment prospects. These tracer studies are useful instruments to find out the acceptability of OUSL study programmes among employers and learners on the one hand and to determine the levels of learner satisfaction with respect to the quality of study materials, teaching methods, learning problems etc.,

Private sector

This year's graduation has shown that our output has increased in most programmes in comparison with the year 2010. Areas showing marked improvements include B Sc in Natural Sciences, B Sc in Nursing, BMS in Management and BA Social Sciences.

It was interesting to find that the OUSL's experiments to teach hard Sciences including Engineering Technology using ODL method has proved successful as depicted in our completion rates. It is also important to understand that the university is providing a second chance to those who have missed opportunities in the conventional system. These are not the best Z score students and they need to work hard while the academic staff also needs to take extra-care in the production of graduates of competitive quality.

The majority of our students are employed-adults who strive to meet deadlines amidst enormous work and family commitment. They are meticulous time managers and conscientious learners. The fact that they learn while working make their application of world of work experiences into the theoretical foundation a rewarding exercise to the teaching staff as well.

Therefore comparisons of graduate output of an ODL university has to be carefully assessed as learning is flexible and learners take a longer time to complete the full quota of credits. However, the faculties have been informed of this requirement of shortening learning cycles without compromising the quality of our awards. The faculties have taken positive steps in the right direction and the outcomes of these changes will be seen shortly.

The OUSL has introduced many new programmes during the past three years. Diploma in nursing to train private sector nurses in collaboration with the Hemas Hospitals is one such programme. The Faculty of Engineering introduced an undergraduate degree programme (BSc Software Engineering) with the assistance of the private sector and this programme is offered fully on-line. At the skill development level we introduced an on-line programme to develop skills in tourism operations to train travel and hospitality workers living in the outskirts.

See table 2

The study programmes of the OUSL are quality tested by the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Unit of the University Grants Commission. In line with those needs and specifications unique to ODL methodology, the OUSL also was exposed to the Commonwealth of Learning- UNESCO initiated Quality Assurance Toolkit and also the Commonwealth of Learning initiated Review and Improvement Methodology (COL-RIM) assessments in 2010. In short, the quality of our educational interventions is the hallmark of what we practice using ODL methodologies to propagate teaching, learning and research outcomes of the OUSL.

The concept of aided self-learning as practiced at the OUSL ensures cost-effective learning options to make our students responsible learners. The state subsidy to meet the costs of infrastructure and wage bill help the OUSL to offer its programmes at an affordable cost while ensuring quality parameters to produce flexible and adaptable learners who can meet the demands in the world of work. Hence the model of ODL practice in the OUSL provides a societal response to proliferate opportunities for higher education in a cost-effective manner.