Considerations for higher education reforms

Decades of underfunding have left our education system, overall, fractured and in urgent need of rebuilding.

- Submitted by Udari Abeyasinghe, Farzana Haniffa, Ahilan Kadirgamar, Anushka Kahandagama, Ramya Kumar, Shamala Kumar, Hasini Lecamwasam, Kaushalya Perera, Aruni Samarakoon, Sivamohan Sumathy, Mahendran Thiruvarangan

The virtual lack of public early childhood education, the years of neglected vocational training, and the scale of problems facing general education (widespread staff shortages, stark disparities in resources, among other things) mean that these subsectors demand immediate attention. Therefore, despite the opaqueness of the consultative process and questions we have about the content of the reforms, the ongoing action on reforming general education and vocational education by the Ministry of Education is a welcome move. No part of the system operates in isolation, however. Even if reforms focus on early, general, or vocational education, higher education must remain part of the conversation. Democratising higher education and making it accessible to a larger number of people will strengthen the entire education system. Such reforms have to be undertaken together with other actions through a consultative process. Waiting until other sectors are ‘in better shape’ will only deepen existing fragmentation.

What is needed is a comprehensive plan that serves all sectors of education and builds a more integrated system capable of addressing each subsector's specific needs. Only then can we create an education system equipped to meet the challenges ahead. We are concerned that recent higher education reforms in Sri Lanka are emulating the market-based model that has failed elsewhere. One of the basic principles of our higher education system has been free education supported by the state, but of late this principle has been given to serious erosion. Successive governments have defunded our state university system—a lower-cost and more equitable model of tertiary education—-while supporting the expansion of private higher education. Universities are compelled to function as businesses, generating their own funds. Inequalities in access are widening with university admissions increasingly favouring the privileged.