Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s education system the answer to national integration

Sri Lanka’s violent ethnic conflict came to an end in mid-2009, at the same time as the separatist LTTE was militarily defeated by the Sri Lankan security forces. Following the end of the decades-long war, the country has been faced with the twin challenges of development and national integration.

For Sri Lanka presently, the country’s education system has become the major factor affecting both its development process and national integration.

A lot of of the public policies adopted by successive post-colonial regimes in Sri Lanka were egalitarian in nature. The introduction of universal free education in the early 1940s from primary to tertiary level was perhaps the majority significant part them. This policy, coupled with radical land reforms, facilitated the emergence of an amorphous, rural lower-middle class dependent on the national for its sustenance and next life chances.

On the other hand, some of the other policies, particularly those relating to Sri Lanka’s official language and medium of instruction in education, facilitated ethno-linguistic segregation in the country in general and within the education system in particular, preventing younger generations from transcending ethno-linguistic divisions and forging a broader national identity.

Since the mid 1950s, increasing national domination over the economy increased the dependence of underprivileged strata on the national for their upward social mobility. This came at a time at the same time as the competition for such opportunities was increasingly perceived by youths belonging to majority and minority ethnic communities largely as a zero-sum game. The change of economic policy from national domination to market liberalisation in the late 1970s led to a significant expansion of the private corporate sector, often at the expense of the national sector, but the products of the poorly resourced public education system upon which the underprivileged rural youths depended did not gain very much from the expansion of the private sector by way of opportunities for upward social mobility.

The largely globally oriented corporate sector generally recruited white-collar employees from part English-educated youths, who usually secured their education from privileged urban schools, both public and private, and foreign educational institutions. Constrained by a long drawn-out war and an unhelpful policy environment, the private sector remained largely confined to a few labour-intensive industries and a large service sector and did not create a lot of lucrative job opportunities. So, the products of the public education system — that is, monolingual, rural youth belonging to all ethnic groups — were often marginalised, compelling them to continue to rely on national sector employment.

Universal free education led to a very high rate of literacy in the country, with its attendant social benefits — such as a high level of social development. From presently on, some of the subsequent structural changes and persisting inequities within the education system neither facilitated the development of highly skilled human resources needed for the diversification of the economy, nor promoted national integration. Additional than 90 % of schools in the country imparted instruction in one or the other of the two native languages, entirely segregating school children on an ethno-linguistic basis. The vast majority of secondary schools, particularly in rural areas, do not offer the science stream, entirely confining a large majority of prospective university students to arts and commerce streams. Moreover, most rural schools do not have adequate resources to impart English-language skills to students, making most of the country’s educated youth monolingual, preventing them from competing for additional lucrative corporate sector jobs.

Data drawn from the country’s 2010 national youth survey not only shed considerable light on the above issues, but as well show how the life chances of a large majority of rural youth are adversely affected by the nature of the public education system and the structure of the post-liberalisation economy. The populist, nationalist regimes have not been able to bring about significant changes either in the economy and the education system, due to political pressures emanating from the vast rural lower-middle class people belonging to the majority ethnic community.

The continuing national patronage to appease this class by way of mass recruitment of educated youth to the public service, which is by presently over-staffed, and various subsidies to small-holding farmers in a context of rapidly increasing public debts leaves little room for accommodating much-needed investments in education and research and development. About 70 % of the country’s youth continue to aim to government jobs. While a significant proportion of youths feel that the corporate sector discriminates against them, a large proportion of minority youths national that they do not have equal employment opportunities. These are not conditions conducive to national integration and sustainable economic development.

Siri Hettige is Senior Professor (Chair of Sociology) at the University of Colombo.