Now it is high time to review past mistakes and shortcomings. It is in the interest of Srilanka that the Government amends its Education policies to meet demands and challenges of modern times. Let us discuss some of advantages and disadvantages of introducing private universities in Srilanka. What are economic and educational benefits of such introduction?
Please click here to read part one of this series of articles
by Dr Rifai Naleemi
(November 05, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) As previously re-iterated Human resource enrichment should be one of main priorities of present government in Srilanka at this age of globalization. This should be done through all sectors of education: primary, secondary, further, higher and professional studies. More importantly, vocational trainings through apprenticeship should be initiated by different ministries to enrich human resources of future generation. Srilanka is gearing up with mega development programmes throughout the country. New airports, new ports, new high ways and new more infrastructures are timely needed. No doubt that such development programmes are badly needed right now after three decades of continuous destruction in wars with LTTE. Yet, these development programmes should go hand in hand with human resource enrichment programmes. Specially, a large percentage of students who can not get placements into national universities should have alternative arrangements to enhance their skills either though private university establishments or through expansion of public universities. Now war is over and Srilankan Government could dramatically reduce its defence expenditure and invest a large percentage of its financial budgets in Education and human resources development: any Investment in Education is a long term investment and an investment in one thousand graduates will be more profitable than investing in one thousand acres for rice cultivation today. Especially, if these graduates could secure employment opportunities in international markets. There is a growing demand for professionals in the western nations with high skills. Teachers, Nurses, economists, financial analysts, and IT professionals are some of these demanding professions in western countries. Srilanka with its rich human resources could provide students with training programmes in these areas to meet international demands. PGCE type teachers training programmes will be an ideal initiative to begin with. Teachers training Institutes could be established in collaboration with international Universities such as Institute of Education in London and with similar institutes. Such training programmes will enhance our teacher training programmes locally as well.
Srilankan University education system alone can not provide employment opportunities for the entire student communities in the country. There should be diversity of programmes to enrich human skills of our future generations. Career developments and human resources enrichment programmes should start from secondary schools. Teachers in secondary schools should have skills to identity and recognise potentialities, interests and natural talents of students’ communities. Moreover, they could guide them right career paths and further education courses. Traditionally, what has been happening in Srilanka is that every parent hopes and wishes that their children should become either doctors or engineers. If their children fail to secure university placements for these courses first time they may ask their children to go for second or third times. In most cases if they fail in third time they end up in their family business or go to Middle Eastern countries or in some case they never continue any other career paths or life skills developments programmes. Only handful of them goes different courses that are available through private Institutions in the country. Education especially in primary and secondary schools is a partnership venture between three parties: namely Teacher, students and parents: there must three way communications between these three parties: Parent should know what is happening in schools and parents should be constantly informed of the progress of their children. Parents must consult teachers and children on career paths and future courses. That is not happening in Srilanka.
Sometimes parents force their children what to do and sometime children decide wrong courses for themselves. Consequently, we waste our human resources skills and talents. This is a crucial juncture in our student communities’ life and in deed; it is a turning point in their life. It is a duty of parents, teachers and education ministry to guide these students from this point onward. It is responsibility and duty of education ministry to monitor drop outs from schools and many parents do not send their children to some trivial reasons and more importantly it should also monitor drops outs from GCSE O/L and A/L students as well. These drop outs when they are added up for some years could cost hugely for Srilankan government and it would become utter waste of our human resources. Sri-Lankan government should have some apprenticeship programmes in diverse courses and training. The bottom line of these private / public university establishments is to create viable job opportunities/ career prospectuses in local and international markets. In western countries many students opt out of university education and go straight to apprenticeships from GCSE O/L and A/Ls onwards. Governments in these countries have alternative vocational and professional training programmes for those who opt out of university education or for those who fail to secure university placements at all. We in Srilanka do not have such mechanisms to train students through apprenticeship programmes. It is high time now that the government plans some these apprenticeship programmes through its different ministries to avoid waste of further human resource skills.
Now it is high time to review past mistakes and shortcomings. It is in the interest of Srilanka that the Government amends its Education policies to meet demands and challenges of modern times. Let us discuss some of advantages and disadvantages of introducing private universities in Srilanka. What are economic and educational benefits of such introduction? Much has been written about this by various scholars and academics yet I will share some of my own thought with these writers. First of all, we need to see if we are preparing future generations of our student communities for our local needs in Srilanka ie local recruitment needs in Srilanka alone. or international recruitment markets. One of main advantages of private or internationally affiliated universities in Srilankan is that these academic institutes will have internationally recognised syllabus and curriculums. It is argued that curriculums of western universities are Eurocentric yet this may true in cases of some subjects but in many subject they are not Eurocentric. They will guide and train their graduates to meet international requirement of job markets: These universities will have an academic freedom to introduce new subjects to meet demands of students’ communities. Hundreds of new subjects in science, medicine, technology, management, business studies, and other professional and academic studies may be introduced to meet different levels local and international student intakes. Moreover, Srilanka students will get into international exposure through interaction with students and lecturers from Abroad. What is more is that our graduates will get career prospectus through career services of private universities. Moreover, Pedagogies of teaching and learning of private universities will be different from that of public universities especially if private universities employ some academic staff from the developed countries. Thus, students will have opportunities to benefit from global learning experiences. More importantly medium of instruction will be in English and this will open up many golden opportunities for our future generations of students.
Private University will recruit highly qualified academic staff with international experiences and exposure. Students will expect higher quality of teaching and learning environment as they pay fees for their education they will expect more from their academic staff. This will assure them higher quality education contrary to what we see sometime in public universities. Unlike public universities, in private universities students will have opportunities to assess and evaluate quality of teaching materials, resources and academic staff. As we discussed previously it would be better for our country to open up education for all. So that in this age of globalization and high-teach world our future generation can prosper and in return whole country could march in the path of progress and developments. Otherwise, we shall be wasting brain power of vast majority of our student community as Srilanka will not be able provide higher education for all right now. Moreover, students in public universities have excessive freedom to stage strikes and some times to disrupt teachings and other activities of universities. However, in a private university environment they would not go for strikes because they are paying fees for their education and they will be mindful of loosing their money.
Our national universities need many changes in teaching and learning practices. No doubt Srilankan universities maintain higher quality of teaching compared to many universities in third world countries. We have some excellent teaching staffs and academics and yet we need to make some improvement in some areas of our teaching. We have traditionally inherited Education system of Great Britain. Since the establishment of University College by British in 1942 up to now we have been maintaining somewhat high standard of teaching. That is why British Universities still recognise Srilankan degrees as equivalent to British degrees. Students who come to England to do postgraduate degrees from some other countries are requested to sit for qualifying examinations but Srilankan students are exempted from these qualifying Examinations. Moreover we are still maintaining higher quality standards in our A/L Examinations as well specially in maths and sciences subjects. Yet, our examination systems need to be changed with modern evaluation methods taking into account rapid changes in new assessment methods. We have system of examining A/L students with written examinations in all subjects. This should be changed taking account the performance of students throughout secondary school years and monitoring the performance through course work assessments system in some subjects. More academic reference methods and professional courses could be added to A./L studies. I think with introduction of private universities many schools will automatically change some of their teaching methods. What is more important is to introduce radical changes in the contents and syllabus of teaching in our universities. All most all subjects go through radical changes in our modern world. However, academic departments of some of our universities do not very often change the contents of their syllabus due to lack of teachings materials and teachings resources. Some departments have syllabi which were written many years ago and in our age of globalization contents of university syllabus have to be changed incorporating latest development in each and every subjects. Not only the contents of course outlines have to be changed, the delivering methods of teaching have to be changed as well to day incorporating excellent pedagogies of teaching and learning as well.
In our modern time it is very much important to know how to impart and communicate our knowledge to next generation of students at schools and universities. Method of imparting knowledge is important as knowledge itself: We know how to amass knowledge but some of us lack in methods of communicating: the ways to present it. Methods of communications are equally important as much as contents of communications: In this sense, it should be noted that dictating types of teaching and learning have already disappeared in most parts of world. Unfortunately, due to lack of awareness in modern learning methods some of our university teachers are dictating notes for their undergraduates. It is sad truth that most of our academic staffs in departments of humanities still follow the traditional ways of teaching in that they dictate undergraduates from their note books. I do not want generalise this issue and I do not think each and every lecturers do this. This type of fashion teaching is practised mostly in arts faculties not in other faculties and the faculties and department mostly use modern empirical and practical methods of teaching in most cases.
Sometime, these notes are repeated for many years without any consideration for modern changes in the contents of subject they teach and methods of their teaching. Students are indoctrinated in their subject matters. Students are not given times and opportunities to debate, discuss and argue in classrooms. They never have been given time to question their lecturers in their classrooms. Questioning lecturers in lecture halls in front of students is regarded as rude and disrespect in some cases. Due to fear of repercussions from their lecturers students always maintain obedience, and loyalty to their lecturers fearing revenge in their final examinations. It is a bitter truth that sometimes, some lecturers use institutional bullying tactics to revenge students if they see them rude and bad mannered. I know personally that one of my colleagues had very hard time to submit his MPhil thesis in one of our reputed universities and it was the mediation Dean/Arts made it possible for him to meet deadline to submit his thesis on time. Had not there been involvement of Dean/Art faculty he would have been kicked out of university life right now. Some students are made to repeat in their final examinations and some are failed in their examinations because of some pity disputes and disagreements with their lecturers. There are hundreds of unreported cases of such incidents in the history of 60 years university education. I do not generalise this to say that each and every lecturers are behaving like this but there a few who behave like this and they have damaged good names of excellent professional academic staffs. One of the reasons for this type of authoritarian behaviour of lecturers is that they are not accountable for any one and their teaching duties are not monitored, observed, and assessed either by Heads of departments or Deans of faculties. Qualities and professional skills of university teaching have been unchecked for many decades in Srilanka. Sometimes, Heads/Deans do not have courage and guts to question and monitor teaching skills of their colleagues. This may be they are not duty bound to do so or may be because of mutual understanding. Some may feel that they do not want to meddle in personal matters of their colleagues at works. Event universities students do not openly make any comments about teaching qualities of their lecturers in classroom for obvious reasons as noted before. We should not be shame to reveal some more unprofessional attitudes of some universities lecturers in Srilanka. With introduction of private universities these attitudes will inevitably be changed and lecturers will have to take care of their students as their customers in a real sense. In western academic institutes there is a system of staff appraisal to evaluate the performance of academic staff. Each year students will receive a set of appraisal forms to remark about teaching performance of academic staffs. This is done to maintain higher quality of teaching in these institutes as a result of this evaluation mechanism staffs perform well in their teaching duties with some responsibility and accountability. I think that with introduction of private universities this system of staffs’ appraisal will be introduced in one way or another.
In Western university academic system students’ talents and skills are highly recognised and appreciated without any discrimination on the basis of colour, race, religion, and nationality. That is why we see many Non-white academic people in western universities. Preference is given to talents and skills over these human values of colour, race, religion and nationality. This is done in greater interest of country in recognition talents. There is no greater injustice than academic injustice done to talented students and there is no greater theft than academic theft of not appreciating and recognising divinely given natural talent of students. I mean disregarding the most qualified students over less qualified on the basis of colour, race, religion and regionalism. Unfortunately, In Srilankan University system lecturers have monopoly to give grades and honours degrees as they like. It is true that all processes of grading go thorough approvals of senate committees yet, it is individual lecturers have final say on awarding classes. There is no a collective system of evaluating students’ performance throughout academic years. Some lecturers even may not have proper recording of the progress of each student in any professional way. It is an open secret that favouritism in terms of cast, regionalism, race, and religion still dominates in our university systems. That is one more bitter truth about our university system in Srilanka. Thousand of graduates who are directly affected by academic cheating may testify such claims. There is more irregularity in nominating for various scholarship schemes in universities. Sometime, most qualified and most needed academics are left out with political and social influence. This is also one more injustice in our university education systems and there must be some legal and academic procedures in nominating for scholarships. Academics who are directly affected by this injustice do not openly talk about these things nowadays for fear more victimization.
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