Private national education: the SAITM model
In Sri Lanka, anything ‘private’ seems not too good nationally. Nationalisation is the buzz word, as it means somebody else’s effort and work is acquired for presumed wider benefit of the public. Historically, however, this process is a proven pathway of ‘politicisation’ leading to a gradual downfall of the institution ending up with increased public liability. A majority of the public see ‘privatisation’ as a provision for public exploitation. But, is it? This impression is also prevalent amongst our reporters and publishers. This article is about one example where ‘private education’ can be used for national benefit. Not many would want to publish this kind of article in their newspaper or website as it does not favour the buzz word, ‘nationalisation’ and unfortunately, this kind of publication bias factures the foundation of independent reporting, which an essential feature of true democracy and healthy debate.
The South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) was a contemporary campus established in 2011 in Colombo to provide tertiary education for self-funding students.
It acquired degree awarding status for the MBBS medical undergraduate degree in 2013 and was to be on par with the MBBS degree awarded by the state universities in Sri Lanka. Since the course was fee levying, it was affordable only to a fraction of our community. This created a sense of a ‘class’ divide. As a consequence, a protest campaign broke out against the SAITM which was mainly led by students attending the state universities who are enjoying free education. The protests were similar to those that were staged against the North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) two decades ago, the first privately funded medical school in Sri Lanka started in 1980. The NCMC was abolished and nationalised in 1989 and was absorbed into the state sector, and renamed Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya.
I have no connection whatsoever with the SAITM. I am also not sympathetic to the protesters as their demands are extremely selfish. However, I see a novel educational model within this framework that can kick start our stagnant tertiary education system in Sri Lanka. Having studied and worked in a state university for over 20 years, my interest is to uplift tertiary education. We can re-model this educational pathway with broader understanding to benefit the entire nation as a whole.
When I entered the Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya in 1975 to study medicine, only two per cent of the Advanced Level student population got an opportunity to enter university. The remaining 98% that ‘failed’ entry (not because they failed the Advanced Level Exam) had to find their own ways and self-fund their tertiary education. Today in 2016, after 40 years has gone by nothing much has changed. Only three per cent of the Advanced Level student population gain an opportunity to enter a Sri Lankan university. Sadly, as a country we have not really made any progress with regard to tertiary education for our children. This is a ‘failed model’ that needs rational and radical modification.
We can never be a developed country this way as we are not producing a sufficiently skilled workforce that can match the demands of a developed country. Unless, we resolve this educational gap, we are to see more and more people protesting along road sides demanding jobs that are non-existent. That is why we need to find another model for tertiary education in Sri Lanka – without resorting to the export of housemaids. For us to be hopeful of becoming a developed nation, at least 40% of our Advanced Level student population should follow a relevant undergraduate degree program and acquire modern skills to cater to the current needs. There shall never be sufficient national funding for this purpose in the current environment of heavy national debt. Furthermore, free education is not sufficiently competitive to promote educational advances. Competitive education is not a bad thing. In fact conversely, it is the biggest impetus for modernisation.
The tragedy is that 97% of students who did not get a chance to enter a Sri Lankan university not only have to self-fund their tertiary education under the current setting but also pay taxes to fund the three per cent who entered the university as they receive free education via public money. It is these three per cent of students, who are now securely placed in state universities wanting to block medical and some other education programs for the others. This is an inverted model of capitalism. Basically students in free education want to ‘privatise’ medical education for themselves. In the socialistic jargon, this is another form of the caste system, based on the Z-score mania. They have no right to interfere with anybody else’s education, especially when they are funding it by themselves.
The problem with the SAITM is its lack of transparency in the student selection process and inaccessibility to the common man who cannot afford the fees. Both these issues can be resolved rela- tively easily.
The solution is within grasp in four realistic steps. The SAITM gets included in the University Grants Commission (UGC) admission hand book and student selection takes place via the UGC as for any other university study program in the country. Therefore, the current nationally accepted selection process will take over student selection to SAITM. In the UGC book this program should be identified as a ‘fee levying’ program with details of the cost. The UGC Quality Assurance Council and the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) approve the acceptability of its curriculum with the relevant improvements. Advanced Level students can now select their choices upon their merit and include the SAITM also if they so wish. This will ensure equity at the application and entry level. If a student selected to the SAITM cannot afford the course fees there should be provision for him/her to apply for a low-cost repayable government loan. The loans are subject to mandatory repayment in instalments after their qualification and employment. Thus, ensuring that the increasing numbers of students entering tertiary education do not become a national burden. The SAITM be declared as a non-profit making organisation and subject to the Government auditor’s scrutiny. The SAITM will this way come under the national framework as any other state university. However, the SAITM should preserve its automaticity and modify its curricula in keeping with rapidly evolving medical knowledge. It should also retain its right to the processes of modification and recruitment of staff. It should also preserve the right to select a small proportion of exceptional students, including foreign students in keeping with UGC policy. This is to ensure that these institutions are not ‘locked’ in with an outdated national model and can improve the quality of their programs to maintain student demand and become financially self-sufficient. Fifty per cent of medical knowledge changes every five years. The current curricula revision pathway in the national university system is too snail paced to keep it modern and up-to-date.
This is a good model of tertiary education that will apply to most other programs also. It will also invite other investors to establish quality educational institutions in Sri Lanka. It is also a model that can attract foreign students via our own A Level exams (A major investment for the country). This will resolve this issue in the long run and allow more self-funded education programs to join the UGC. This will give a much needed boost to education in our country and also stop the brain drain of educators.
(Chula Goonasekera is a former professor and dean of the University of Peradeniya and Mahes Salgado is the Head of the English Language Teaching Unit.)
Some 15 months or so ago the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry hastened to ‘clarify’ a remark that foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera was reported to have made in an interview with Japan’s largest broadcasting establishment NHK. It had to do with Sri Lanka’s foreign policy under the new government.
NHK said: “Sri Lanka’s foreign minister says the country will review its China-dependent foreign policy and boost ties with other nations.” The NHK interview was reproduced in some local media.
The ministry denied that the minister had mentioned any particular country when he talked of the new government reviewing the country’s foreign policy.
Even if he did not make a specific reference to a country as claimed, anybody who had been following the presidential election campaign and subsequent comments and developments regarding China-financed projects, especially massive infrastructure projects, and the critical remarks about corruption and abuse, know only too well that the finger was pointed at China.
Though the criticism and allegations were directed at persons in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, China was implicated by extension. It might also be recalled that the port call by a Chinese submarine and the security concerns raised by India led Sri Lanka to claim that it will never be allowed to happen again or words to that effect.
Moreover the haste with which Samaraweera has tried to establish links with the US and the string of officials from Washington who quickly visited Colombo to touch base with the new government seemed even longer than China’s so-called “string of pearls”.
So much so that just a few months after President Sirisena took office and the ‘mangala mohotha’ was observed in Washington DC, Secretary of State John Kerry deigned to pay a visit to Colombo, the first US Secretary of State to do so in some 40 years. This, it seemed, was a marriage of true minds.
It might also be recalled that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe paid his first official visit to New Delhi following in the footsteps of President Sirisena. That was to be expected.
But if the public thought that he would then visit China, the country that provided, among other things, the weaponry to fight the Tamil Tiger insurgency at a time when the west not only turned its back on Sri Lanka but was a virulent critic of the Colombo government, he headed to Japan. It was some time later that Wickremesinghe decided to go to Beijing.
Those better acquainted with the workings of the Chinese mind and its often patient diplomacy would - or should - have known that Beijing would stay the course despite the pinpricks because, as Chinese leaders later emphasized, they deal with countries not with passing politicians.
While the new government’s caravan headed by Samaraweera was travelling to Washington and other western capitals, Beijing was going about its business knowing only too well that the economic/financial assistance Sri Lanka needs to overcome its immediate fiscal problems is not going to come from Washington or other western allies that Colombo was assiduously cultivating as part of its recalibration of its foreign policy.
So now it is not Chinese subs but ships of the US Seventh Fleet and other commands that are frequent callers at Sri Lankan ports.
That comes as little surprise. Just as Colombo started wooing Washington as part of its new foreign policy assessment, the US was also seeking to enmesh Sri Lanka in President Obama’s pivot to Asia policy.
Sri Lanka’s re-orientation seemed to dovetail perfectly with the Obama game plan of including the Indian Ocean region from east of India into the Pacific which has traditionally been the region of US security concerns from the days of the Cold War.
Obama’s first term strategy has been to turn diplomatic attention and its military weaponry away from conflicts in the Middle East (or West Asia as it should be called) to the Asia-Pacific region. It is already becoming clear that this strategy is failing for several reasons, particularly because this poorly concealed effort to challenge China via the Indian Ocean region is a policy fraught with some danger for the smaller countries geographically located in the region.
The above provides a sort of prologue to look at Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s more considered and thoughtful inaugural speech delivered at the Indian Ocean Conference in Singapore earlier this month.
Some of the observations Wickremesinghe made are of course truisms. But what is interesting and certainly provides food for thought especially for those US officials who believed that Sri Lanka was ripe for plucking as a pliant client, is the Prime Minister questioning the viability of the US bid to shape a joint IndoPacific security strategy ignoring the fundamental diversity and uniqueness of countries of the Asian region.
While China was stamping its claim to sovereignty in the East China and the South China seas nearby, it was also turning its attention to countries in the Indian Ocean in pursuit of its policy of extending its maritime sea route all the way to east Africa and into parts of West Asia.
To counter this Chinese strategy the Obama policy was to leave behind the mess it helped create in West Asia and move into the Indian
I have no connection whatsoever with the SAITM. I am also not sympathetic to the protesters as their demands are extremely selfish. However, I see a novel educational model within this framework that can kick start our stagnant tertiary education system in Sri Lanka. Having studied and worked in a state university for over 20 years, my interest is to uplift tertiary education. We can re-model this educational pathway with broader understanding to benefit the entire nation as a whole.