Education Policy And FUTA’s Mandate: Some Thoughts
By Jayadeva
Uyangoda -August 20, 2012
Prof.Jayadeva Uyangoda
Some people have made an
argument that FUTA has
exceeded the mandate of a trade union when it demands the government to
allocate 6% of
the GDP to education. This argument emanates from the position that
trade unions have no business with government’s fiscal policy. According to the
advocates of this position, deciding priorities and policies of allocating
government expenditure is entirely the job of the government and its
policy-making officials.
This
essay is only supplementary to the excellent response earlier circulated by
Shamala Kumar of Peradeniya.
To
begin with, the argument of FUTA exceeding its mandate emanates from a narrow,
minimalist, and sorry to say, outdated, understanding of trade unionism.
Although trade unions have often focused their struggles on wage demands, trade
unionism in general has not been confined to wage-related demands alone. Those
who have the slightest understanding of the history of trade unionism in Sri
Lanka would know that even during the colonial times, Sri Lanka’s trade unions
combined economic demands with social and political demands as well. It is wrong
to suggest that trade unionism by definition is concerned exclusively and only
on wage demands.
What
the critics of FUTA’s demand for increased allocation of government expenditure
on public education want from FUTA is to confine its concerns to a narrow and
minimalist framework. But, neither the FUTA nor many of the trade unions in Sri
Lanka or elsewhere are minimalist in their orientation, agendas and
demands.
This wage-related minimalism in trade union agenda is a
position advocated at present in Sri Lanka by two groups of FUTA critics. The
first group represents the interests and policies of the government and the
Ministry of Higher Education. The second group consists mostly of economists who
appear to share the view that fiscal policy decisions are the exclusive
prerogative of the economists at the Treasury, and not the lesser mortals, the
proletariat, organised in trade unions. The latter position gives rise to the
wrong notion that ‘economists and the Treasury know best.’
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