University Education & SAITM
Dr. Ameer Ali
Since the controversy over SAITM started snowballing into an overall critique of university education a few erudite contributions have appeared in this journal. I too have contributed one on the bigger picture (4 September 2017). Having taught in five universities in three countries for over fifty years, including 10 years in Sri Lanka, I think my observations on the subject can add some substance to the public debate.
It is now an accepted fact that the quality of university education in general has declined almost universally. Sri Lanka cannot remain an exception to this global phenomenon. Once upon a time and before the 1970s the standard of learning and teaching at the Paradeniya and Colombo campuses of the one and only University of Ceylon at that time was exceptionally high and was comparable to that of any of the renowned universities in the West. Although there are reasons peculiar to Sri Lanka that led to the decline in standard since then there is one factor that is systemic and has affected university education all over the world. This is the issue of university funding consequent of the new liberal philosophy regarding university learning. This philosophy has now been embraced by the current rulers in Sri Lanka and is bound to affect university education in the future. In short, we are facing a systemic problem.
Education from the kindergarten to the university was once deemed to be a public good. Hence it was produced free either by the government or charitable institutions. Because of the immense social benefits that literacy and numeracy brought to society primary education was even made even compulsory to all. Beyond that it was still free but not compulsory. When provided by government the cost was met through the national budget. The fact that education at secondary and tertiary levels also brought private benefits to the learners was understood by policy makers but in their view the social benefit was so overwhelming that they were even prepared to assist financially through scholarships those promising students who were found in danger of being deprived of it because of economic hardship. This was the ideological background to the birth of free education in Sri Lanka.
During the British period the ruling philosophy of education was best captured in Lord Macaulay’s 1835 Indian ‘Minute on Education’ in which he stated “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” It was with this ideology that the Ceylon University College was established in 1921, which merged with the Ceylon Medical College in 1942 and became the University of Ceylon. After independence however, the role of university education had to change from producing civil servants and bureaucrats to creating critical thinkers, scholars and researchers who would contribute to the overall development of the nation. This was another reason why governments of decolonised countries were generous in funding university education. In Sri Lanka governments continued to provide free education from kindergarten to the university.
