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Sri Lanka’s education system the answer to national integration

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In Brief

Sri Lanka’s violent ethnic conflict came to an end in mid-2009, when 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 now, the country’s education system has become the major factor affecting both its development process and national integration.

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Many 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 most significant among them. This policy, coupled with radical land reforms, facilitated the emergence of an amorphous, rural lower-middle class dependent on the state for its sustenance and future 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 state domination over the economy increased the dependence of underprivileged strata on the state for their upward social mobility. This came at a time when 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 state domination to market liberalisation in the late 1970s led to a significant expansion of the private corporate sector, often at the expense of the state 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 among 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 many 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 state 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. Yet, 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. More than 90 per cent of schools in the country imparted instruction in one or the other of the two native languages, effectively segregating school children on an ethno-linguistic basis. The vast majority of secondary schools, particularly in rural areas, do not offer the science stream, effectively 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 more lucrative corporate sector jobs.

Data drawn from the country’s 2010 national youth survey not only shed considerable light on the above issues, but also 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 population belonging to the majority ethnic community.

The continuing state patronage to appease this class by way of mass recruitment of educated youth to the public service, which is already 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 per cent of the country’s youth continue to aspire to government jobs. While a significant proportion of youths feel that the corporate sector discriminates against them, a large proportion of minority youths state 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.

One response to “Sri Lanka’s education system the answer to national integration”

  1. The youth unemployment rate in Sri Lanka increased to 20 per cent

    The young generation plays a vital role in the society. The personal traits and the characteristics of generation Y or the millennials are very different compared to the generation X who were born in the 60s and 70s.Nowadays, the biggest issue that affects the younger generation in Sri Lanka is the high growth of the unemployment rate.
    The youth unemployment rate In Sri Lanka,increased from 18.5 per cent to 20 per cent through the year. Despite the fact that millennials have more capabilities and enthusiasm, some have difficulties when it comes to find a most suitable job.
    The reason is that a number of job seekers are not aware about how to land their “dream Job” effectively. There are new online platforms for doing that so that skills and experience can be matched with employment.

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