Current and future trends in university education

Education is said to be a treasure that provide the power of knowledge, which though intangible has great capabilities.

Knowledge powered by quality education could perform miracles in countries, conflicts cease, transform from poverty to prosperity, stiulate economic activities, and provide more employment opportunities in a global basis.

In fact this is currently taking place with most developing countries using their power of education now turning out quality products to serve the globe thus creating a massive multi million global skill migration business, on the other hand these countries in their home soil are able to provide quality back office support to developed countries. Countries that have invested in education are reaping benefits with improved quality of life.

Sri Lanka is an heir to a rich education legacy originating from the ancient times with a well established pirivena education system firmly rooted in the country. With the industrial revolution and colonial administration Sri Lanka maintained this momentum in developing a well established primary and secondary education system. Power of education received a massive boost with the evolution of the free education policies of the 1940’s that brought an upswing in the rural talent. This generation of talent did produce a vast number of quality intellectuals of various disciplines most of whom unfortunately are now serving the developed countries owing to different political swings and associated conflict environment that did not provide peaceful living conditions in the home country.

Continuing development of the secondary school system that has weathered many storms of insurrections and terrorism has resulted in large number of students seeking tertiary education facilities, unfortunately due to resource limitations nearly 80 % of the qualified youth are shut out from the public university system while the cream of 20% enters the public universities which number around 15. Of this 80% shut outs, about 10 to 11% find their way in to professional courses such as accountancy, law, marketing and architecture, etc and now it’s reported that around 50% are enrolled at local accredited institutions of foreign universities who offer degree programs. Undoubtedly these foreign affiliated universities have now come to stay as a useful provider of tertiary education services in Sri Lanka.

Even though necessary legal provision exists for private degree awarding institutes it is said that the system does not work well and the eligible institutes have expressed their displeasure publicly on this unhappy situation.

The affiliated university sector that awards degrees on behalf of their foreign principals has now become a major player in the tertiary education sector and their role in the national education sphere is significant and cannot be underestimated. Apart from catering to qualified students who are shut out they also add a healthy competitive spirit to the university system.

Flexibilities in their operations and being able to react speedily to global changes have given this sector added importance.

While the public university system continues to be under funded, not an expected scenario in a country that’s been affected by conflict for nearly quarter a century, it is to the credit of universities they still turn out quality graduates who could well fit in the global requirements.

Medical, engineering, science and of late management faculties have worked with enthusiasm and dedication to maintain this status quo despite the often misguided belief that our graduates are poor quality which is more an exaggerated view based on the un-employability of certain category of graduates whose skills don’t match with the market requirements. Universities now number around 15 with even a medical faculty being set up at Rajarata a recently established unit.

This is a good move as students from the provinces need not necessarily come to Colombo or Peradeniya at high cost.

It is abundantly clear that both the local universities and foreign degree awarding institutions will play the most important role of providing quality graduates in our cherished dream of a meritocratic society capable of producing competent honest political leaders, public servants, doctors, engineers, business and civil society leaders which are essential features of nation building.

Each year enthusiastic parents send their children overseas for first degree qualification at a tremendous cost to themselves as well as to the national economy and also leading to social dislocations.

While this situation cannot be entirely eliminated a good number of parents would prefer to keep their children in the home country at least for the first degree if the government can assist both to sustain quality and operate without interruptions.

A proper quality assurance system and a public assurance system should prevail for both sectors as well as newly established universities. The education sector is an unfortunate victim of the frequent changes of governments and ministers/ministries/institutions thus adversely affecting the consistency of the policies adopted