Brighter UK students opting not to attend university
The website notgoingtouniversity, which offers young people advice on opportunities, says deciding against higher education can be a difficult decision for young people.
Some graduates are struggling to find work in the current economic climate
“There is an awful lot of pressure to go to university, which is why the drop-out rate is so high,” says its communications director Sarah Clover.
Annual performance indicators from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show 7.4% of young undergraduates left university after one year in 2007.
“The one-size-fits-all approach is not working and we’re there to show there are other perfectly valid routes,” said Ms Clover.
Universities and Science Minister David Willetts says the government recognises that there is more than one route into “well-paid and fulfilling work”.
“Further education and on-the-job training are of vital importance, which is why this government is investing in further education and has provided 50,000 extra high quality apprenticeships,” he said.
But the British government also says university graduates, on average, have better employment prospects and can expect to earn a lot more than non-graduates over their working lives.
And it is hard to imagine making it to the very top of many professions without a degree or avoiding snobbery and barriers along the way.
A spokesperson for Universities UK said students “clearly appreciate” what university provides and value their student experiences.
“University is a life-changing, long-term investment that has benefits both for the individual and society generally.
“It helps individuals hone their thinking and analytical skills, gives them confidence, and the ability to re-skill as life changes.”
But for Das Gakhal, going straight into employment while gaining qualifications is the obvious head start.
“The whole general route appealed to me - when I did my research, I found most employers wanted experience and through this route, I’ll be able to gain experience and still get this qualification.
“I’ll get a much better experience of accountancy and I’ll have a head start on people who come out of university.” -
BBC
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Science based industry also has to develop in parallel to provide jobs for the graduates! Interdisciplinary fields like nanotech can be developed.!!!
Brain drain:
VICIOUS cycle
Sajitha Prematunge
Educated professionals who migrate in search of greener pastures derive all the benefits that free education entails, only to put to use their expertise for the betterment of a foreign economy.
Over a year after ending a three decade old war one would think that the problem of brain drain will be brought under control, if not completely stopped. But a study conducted by the Centre for Social Policy Analysis and Research finds that 50 percent of the Sri Lankan youth prefers to seek foreign employment. Now that Sri Lanka has managed to put the war behind it, brain drain may be the only thing that stands between its development.
Brain drain is a huge loss to a developing country’s economy. Academics and educated professionals are essential for a country’s development because they are required to head various institutions. Theoretically they should be in the forefront of devising economic restructuring.
Causes
Senior Professor of Sociology, University of Colombo, S.T. Hettige sees brain drain as owing to economic as well as attitudinal issues. He observes that lack of industrial diversification as a major reason for brain drain.
He suggested that it should be diversified to provide job opportunities for highly qualified individuals such as managers, IT experts and technicians. Lack of such job opportunities results in educated youth migrating to industrialized countries.
Worse yet we are now losing these people to Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and India.
The problem is not just that Sri Lanka lack these facilities but that industrialized countries welcome competent professionals. It is an attitudinal issue because most would prefer to migrate to industrialized countries. With their facilities and high salaries it is a bargain hard to pass. “US literally mops up people from all over the world into their cadre of scientific professionals,” said Prof. Hettige.
Brain drain is a vicious cycle. As the few people who are competent enough to train the young generation migrate more and more of Sri Lankan youth go abroad in search of better guidance.
Nanotechnology Director, Professor in Geology and Physics, Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania, Prof. Anura Goonewardene migrated to the US, in 1998, for unpreventable personal reasons, said that most graduates leave the country in search of jobs. He pointed out that Sri Lanka has a limited number of jobs in the field of science and technology to offer.
This is a major reason for brain drain. Moreover only a limited number of students are accommodated into the science field at university level.
However Prof. Goonewardene also observes that some percentage of qualified professionals is now flowing back into the country at the end of a three decade old war. He admitted that such highly qualified individuals may feel a sense of isolation upon return as no opportunities may exist for them to put their expertise to use.
He emphasized the importance of developing Sri Lanka’s resource base to counter this situation. “The universities as well as the commercial sector has to share the existing limited resource base. Consequently opportunities for research on university level is much less than in developed countries,” said Prof. Goonewardene. According to consultant Engineer and Economist Sam Samarasinghe only 0.31 percent of the GDP is allocated for science and technology, way below recommended.
He explained that he sees no flaws in the Sri Lankan education system, that could cause brain drain. ‘Education’ should make use of available resources.
The US has ample resources, consequently can afford the flexibility it offers.
“The US education system allows students to specialize much earlier. Considering the resources available the education system is not directly responsible for brain drain.”
Brain drain is a huge economic loss to a developing country. “At the current rate of brain drain the future of Sri Lankan economy is bleak,” warned Samarasinghe. The main reason for brain drain, in his opinion, is the lack of proper development plan. The intelligentsia saw no potential for development for themselves in Sri Lanka, so they opted to migrate.
Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake explained that as a result of over a 30-year-old war a majority of Tamils were forced to leave the country. But explained that salary anomalies in the education sector has to do more with brain drain than the war.
Recommendations
Prof. Hettige recommended that the economy be restructured and industry diversified. For example agricultural sector should move on to producing value added goods using agricultural raw material. “We still import diary products. There is a lot of scope for diary products in Sri Lanka.”
He claimed that highly qualified people can not be employed unless industry is diversified. Entrepreneurs who lack the capital and technical know-how should explore the possibilities of joint ventures with foreign companies.”
Minister S. B. Dissanayake said that intellectuals are essential for Sri Lanka at a time when it is attempting to make an economic comeback. And claimed that the government hopes to reverse brain drain by offering them high salaries, special consideration for enrolling their children to school, offering special housing loans and vehicle permits.
“Science and technology should be the mainstay of a developing country,” said Samarasinghe. He recommended that at least 1 percent of GDP should be allocated for the field of science and technology and educated, capable, efficient and dedicated individuals placed in key public sector positions. Prof. Hettige recommended that the development process be guided by qualified individuals.
Minister S. B. Dissanayake also agrees that more investments should be made to promote university level research. He said that the government hopes to resolve salary issues by introducing salary reforms, while also allocating more money for research.
When questioned about the allegation that Sri Lankan education is not job oriented, Prof. Goonawardene said that the job oriented system has its own flaws. “For example in engineering academics plan and design and technicians, with lesser qualifications run the system, but both parties are equally necessary.” He explained that India and China had to face the same problem some 30 years ago. “But this didn’t stop them from producing graduates, because some percentage always returned.”
He reiterated the importance of overcoming the bottleneck of entrance into the field of science in Sri Lankan universities. This could be rectified by allowing more students to follow the science stream at university level. But suggested that science based industry also has to develop in parallel to provide jobs for the graduates. He also suggested that interdisciplinary fields like nanotechnology can be developed as a means of creating more job opportunities.
courtesy:dailynews.lk
Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2010 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
VICIOUS cycle
Sajitha Prematunge
Educated professionals who migrate in search of greener pastures derive all the benefits that free education entails, only to put to use their expertise for the betterment of a foreign economy.
Over a year after ending a three decade old war one would think that the problem of brain drain will be brought under control, if not completely stopped. But a study conducted by the Centre for Social Policy Analysis and Research finds that 50 percent of the Sri Lankan youth prefers to seek foreign employment. Now that Sri Lanka has managed to put the war behind it, brain drain may be the only thing that stands between its development.
Brain drain is a huge loss to a developing country’s economy. Academics and educated professionals are essential for a country’s development because they are required to head various institutions. Theoretically they should be in the forefront of devising economic restructuring.
Causes
Senior Professor of Sociology, University of Colombo, S.T. Hettige sees brain drain as owing to economic as well as attitudinal issues. He observes that lack of industrial diversification as a major reason for brain drain.
He suggested that it should be diversified to provide job opportunities for highly qualified individuals such as managers, IT experts and technicians. Lack of such job opportunities results in educated youth migrating to industrialized countries.
Worse yet we are now losing these people to Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and India.
The problem is not just that Sri Lanka lack these facilities but that industrialized countries welcome competent professionals. It is an attitudinal issue because most would prefer to migrate to industrialized countries. With their facilities and high salaries it is a bargain hard to pass. “US literally mops up people from all over the world into their cadre of scientific professionals,” said Prof. Hettige.
Brain drain is a vicious cycle. As the few people who are competent enough to train the young generation migrate more and more of Sri Lankan youth go abroad in search of better guidance.
Nanotechnology Director, Professor in Geology and Physics, Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania, Prof. Anura Goonewardene migrated to the US, in 1998, for unpreventable personal reasons, said that most graduates leave the country in search of jobs. He pointed out that Sri Lanka has a limited number of jobs in the field of science and technology to offer.
This is a major reason for brain drain. Moreover only a limited number of students are accommodated into the science field at university level.
However Prof. Goonewardene also observes that some percentage of qualified professionals is now flowing back into the country at the end of a three decade old war. He admitted that such highly qualified individuals may feel a sense of isolation upon return as no opportunities may exist for them to put their expertise to use.
He emphasized the importance of developing Sri Lanka’s resource base to counter this situation. “The universities as well as the commercial sector has to share the existing limited resource base. Consequently opportunities for research on university level is much less than in developed countries,” said Prof. Goonewardene. According to consultant Engineer and Economist Sam Samarasinghe only 0.31 percent of the GDP is allocated for science and technology, way below recommended.
He explained that he sees no flaws in the Sri Lankan education system, that could cause brain drain. ‘Education’ should make use of available resources.
The US has ample resources, consequently can afford the flexibility it offers.
“The US education system allows students to specialize much earlier. Considering the resources available the education system is not directly responsible for brain drain.”
Brain drain is a huge economic loss to a developing country. “At the current rate of brain drain the future of Sri Lankan economy is bleak,” warned Samarasinghe. The main reason for brain drain, in his opinion, is the lack of proper development plan. The intelligentsia saw no potential for development for themselves in Sri Lanka, so they opted to migrate.
Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake explained that as a result of over a 30-year-old war a majority of Tamils were forced to leave the country. But explained that salary anomalies in the education sector has to do more with brain drain than the war.
Recommendations
Prof. Hettige recommended that the economy be restructured and industry diversified. For example agricultural sector should move on to producing value added goods using agricultural raw material. “We still import diary products. There is a lot of scope for diary products in Sri Lanka.”
He claimed that highly qualified people can not be employed unless industry is diversified. Entrepreneurs who lack the capital and technical know-how should explore the possibilities of joint ventures with foreign companies.”
Minister S. B. Dissanayake said that intellectuals are essential for Sri Lanka at a time when it is attempting to make an economic comeback. And claimed that the government hopes to reverse brain drain by offering them high salaries, special consideration for enrolling their children to school, offering special housing loans and vehicle permits.
“Science and technology should be the mainstay of a developing country,” said Samarasinghe. He recommended that at least 1 percent of GDP should be allocated for the field of science and technology and educated, capable, efficient and dedicated individuals placed in key public sector positions. Prof. Hettige recommended that the development process be guided by qualified individuals.
Minister S. B. Dissanayake also agrees that more investments should be made to promote university level research. He said that the government hopes to resolve salary issues by introducing salary reforms, while also allocating more money for research.
When questioned about the allegation that Sri Lankan education is not job oriented, Prof. Goonawardene said that the job oriented system has its own flaws. “For example in engineering academics plan and design and technicians, with lesser qualifications run the system, but both parties are equally necessary.” He explained that India and China had to face the same problem some 30 years ago. “But this didn’t stop them from producing graduates, because some percentage always returned.”
He reiterated the importance of overcoming the bottleneck of entrance into the field of science in Sri Lankan universities. This could be rectified by allowing more students to follow the science stream at university level. But suggested that science based industry also has to develop in parallel to provide jobs for the graduates. He also suggested that interdisciplinary fields like nanotechnology can be developed as a means of creating more job opportunities.
courtesy:dailynews.lk
Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2010 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Around 100 Lankans have passed out since 1995! Rigas Stradina Universitate in Latvia opens its doors to Sri Lankan medical students !
Around 100 Lankans have passed out since 1995
Rigas Stradina Universitate in Latvia opens its doors to
Sri Lankan medical students
By Steve A. Morrell
After strictures of Soviet Rule since World War II, Latvia is now an independent State in the upper Straits of Europe. She is flanked by Lithuania, and Estonio. Latvia with the same land mass of Sri Lanka, about 64,000 square Kilometers, has a population of just 2.5 million.
Dean, Rigas Stradina Universitate (RSU), Dr. Ms. Samuidra Zermanos, and Director, Department of Academic and Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ms. Juta Kroica were in Sri Lanka last week to project the image of RSU, and its accessibility to students who wished to pursue medical studies in Lativia.
Addressing the media, Dr. Zermanos said after years of Soviet domination Latvia is now an independent sovereign state and guide its own systems of governance. Medical studies is one such area for self advancement.
However, the difference, quite unusual in Soviet countries, is that the medium of instruction is English. Stemming from latitude emanating from decision for instruction in English, RSU opened its doors to students from other countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and most countries in the Asia Pacific archipelago., she noted.
Dr. Zermanos said the medical degree programme has a study period of six years, and results in attaining an MD, which is above an MBBS qualification awarded to those who earn a medical degree locally.
Dr. Kroica said RSU accepted foreign students since about 1990. The university offered 100 placings each year to foreign students to earn medical degrees.
She said over the past few years since 1995, around 100 students from Sri Lanka graduated and have been absorbed into the medical profession.
She named one such former Sri Lankan RSU student, Dr. Vimukthi Pathiraja, who now works for the Harvard Medical School in the USA as a top specialist
The response from Sri Lankan students has been encouraging and the process of enrolment for the new intake is now in progress, Dr. Kroica noted. "We are very happy with the response".
Questioned on costs, Dr. Zermanos said course fee amounts to 7000 Euros per year. These costs did not include residential fees and food. Residential commitments would be approximately 300 Euros per month, and food would be an extra commitment.
Can students work? She said ‘Yes’, but qualified that statement saying usually medical students don’t have time to work and study. Strict time tables for studies do not include spare time to work. "It is not a physical possibility", she said.
The RSU study course has been a complementary adjunct to the medical degree here, she noted.
Questioned by the press on reasons for students from, for instance western countries like the US , UK, or Canada, to opt for studies in the RSU, she said the degree achievement in Latvia is far less costly than most Western Universities. For example, a degree from most Universities in the UK would cost upwards 20,000 Sterling each year. It was so with US Universities as well.
What is so appealing about the RSU Medical Degree? "Cost and international recognition", she answered. More so, individual attention because students do not comprise more that 14 in each group. Intense instruction and individual attention could be imparted bearing in mind course projections for greater student participation in academic work. They do not teach other academic disciplines at RSU.
The prospectus issued at the press brief indicated course commencement each year September and February, for full time studies. Six years or 12 semesters was the period for studies to attain 360 credits. The MD qualification was its achievement goal. The medium of instruction is either English or Latvian..
www island.lk
Rigas Stradina Universitate in Latvia opens its doors to
Sri Lankan medical students
By Steve A. Morrell
After strictures of Soviet Rule since World War II, Latvia is now an independent State in the upper Straits of Europe. She is flanked by Lithuania, and Estonio. Latvia with the same land mass of Sri Lanka, about 64,000 square Kilometers, has a population of just 2.5 million.
Dean, Rigas Stradina Universitate (RSU), Dr. Ms. Samuidra Zermanos, and Director, Department of Academic and Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ms. Juta Kroica were in Sri Lanka last week to project the image of RSU, and its accessibility to students who wished to pursue medical studies in Lativia.
Addressing the media, Dr. Zermanos said after years of Soviet domination Latvia is now an independent sovereign state and guide its own systems of governance. Medical studies is one such area for self advancement.
However, the difference, quite unusual in Soviet countries, is that the medium of instruction is English. Stemming from latitude emanating from decision for instruction in English, RSU opened its doors to students from other countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and most countries in the Asia Pacific archipelago., she noted.
Dr. Zermanos said the medical degree programme has a study period of six years, and results in attaining an MD, which is above an MBBS qualification awarded to those who earn a medical degree locally.
Dr. Kroica said RSU accepted foreign students since about 1990. The university offered 100 placings each year to foreign students to earn medical degrees.
She said over the past few years since 1995, around 100 students from Sri Lanka graduated and have been absorbed into the medical profession.
She named one such former Sri Lankan RSU student, Dr. Vimukthi Pathiraja, who now works for the Harvard Medical School in the USA as a top specialist
The response from Sri Lankan students has been encouraging and the process of enrolment for the new intake is now in progress, Dr. Kroica noted. "We are very happy with the response".
Questioned on costs, Dr. Zermanos said course fee amounts to 7000 Euros per year. These costs did not include residential fees and food. Residential commitments would be approximately 300 Euros per month, and food would be an extra commitment.
Can students work? She said ‘Yes’, but qualified that statement saying usually medical students don’t have time to work and study. Strict time tables for studies do not include spare time to work. "It is not a physical possibility", she said.
The RSU study course has been a complementary adjunct to the medical degree here, she noted.
Questioned by the press on reasons for students from, for instance western countries like the US , UK, or Canada, to opt for studies in the RSU, she said the degree achievement in Latvia is far less costly than most Western Universities. For example, a degree from most Universities in the UK would cost upwards 20,000 Sterling each year. It was so with US Universities as well.
What is so appealing about the RSU Medical Degree? "Cost and international recognition", she answered. More so, individual attention because students do not comprise more that 14 in each group. Intense instruction and individual attention could be imparted bearing in mind course projections for greater student participation in academic work. They do not teach other academic disciplines at RSU.
The prospectus issued at the press brief indicated course commencement each year September and February, for full time studies. Six years or 12 semesters was the period for studies to attain 360 credits. The MD qualification was its achievement goal. The medium of instruction is either English or Latvian..
www island.lk
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Future of the world will be driven by knowledge..!!! Human factor is our greatest endowment..!!!
Looking to the future:
Meeting challenges of higher education
by Prof. Upali Vidanapathirana
The expectations of the millennium development goals (MDG) were to come into force again in Cape Town, South Africa when heads of universities met in April to discuss and debate whether the fading link between higher education and MDG, can be re-established.
Frankly, much of the MDG fanfare in the 1990s is lost by now. In the developing countries fraught by problems of political turmoil, soaring energy prices, recession and droughts, MDGs receded to the background.
Sri Lanka, in contrast, has performed laudably in the spheres of primary education and gender equality while its poverty reduction records have also shown that it is on the verge of meeting the timelines. These are positive signs. However, there are a few other areas where Sri Lanka needs to purposefully engage in raising its performance. One such area is higher education. This sector demands a lot more discussion, debating and commitment at all levels.
The MDG decade that elapsed should have made us a little wiser for the sake of our own survival. The younger generation that is the target group of higher education is wise and knowledgable. Therefore, those of us who are responsible for guiding the youth of this country cannot afford to be complacent about what we do and when we do what we are supposed to do.
This is because the prosperity or peril of our generation will depend on our ability to invest purposefully on education improvements of the generation to come. Currently it is burdened by a myriad of real and supposed problems that need serious attention. The purpose of this article therefore is to reflect on the future of the higher education of this country.
A fundamental assumption of this paper is that the future of this country depends almost exclusively on investments on human capital. Sri Lanka like Japan has an abundance of human capital that requires both enhancement and enrichment. Sri Lankans by nature are hard working. Given the opportunity they are capable of proving their calibre.
This is shown by all those Sri Lankans who have migrated for Education, employment or resettlement. Our youth are a lot more trainable, committed and capable. However, while living in Sri Lanka most of us are lethargic. The list of these negative attributes of Sri Lankans living in Sri Lanka is long and endless.
The assumptions
It is in this background that Sri Lankan authorities need to be astute. Their design and plans need to be futuristic. This is because
a) human factor is our greatest endowment and
b) the future of the world will be driven by knowledge.
In this context there are two other important lessons we can learn. Those countries that are worse off than us today have done badly in human capital development. Sub-Saharan Africa speaks volumes in this regard. Conversely, other countries that are performing better today have invested more purposefully on human capital developments. East Asia can be a case in point. Thus our directions should be clear. What is perhaps unclear may be whether we have the desired sense of direction to take us to the future?
There are no alternatives with respect to investment on human capital. The growth of economies in this country will depend very much on our ability to generate energetic human capital and use them wisely; this is because today economies are driven by knowledge; by science and technology; by training and education and by research and dissemination of research findings for real world applications. However, there is a vital need to make them relevant to our long-term needs.
There is also a need to generate new knowledge that is relevant to us. This new knowledge needs to be exploited to generate value to the economy and hence ready for human consumption. These changes may be equally or even more important than our investments on roads, bridges and power stations we build, expecting a brighter tomorrow. It does not mean that those investments are irrelevant. They can be made really relevant only if we can create a generation of people who can productively and purposefully use them to make our future prosperous.
The orthodox interpretations of economics may differ here as they do not distinguish benefits of investments on human capital holistically. This may be why social returns on the investments on education are rated high only in the case of primary and secondary education. Nonetheless, higher education too generates important value addition because of its contribution to social equity and social harmony.
In general, engineers, doctors, scientists, technologists, accountants and economists appear to be more self-serving in their approach. This idea has emerged because their contribution to national development is less tangible. Therefore, we should change our matrix without blaming the object to be measured.
The challenges
First, the current conjecture demands a different tool kit that can be used to measure the socio-economic environment of Sri lanka resolutely and evolve strategies that are bold and unconventional. The war that drained this country both physically and morally is over. The economic crisis that engulfed the world since last year has shown signs of turning around. Interestingly, this crisis was useful as it changes socio-political and the economic order of the world substantially.
For instance, it has expedited the decimation of the uni-polar world order. There is also a change of ideological trusts. The ultra leftist as well as ultra-rightist views pertaining to politics also are undergoing change. These contextual changes have generated a need for striking a balance by seeking insights from different viewpoints and root them in our own cultural and social milieu.
Second, higher education has become an extremely competitive enterprise the world over (this feature is somewhat evident at primary education levels too). From the supply side, providers of education are numerous; they include the State sector, private sector, international providers, and a mixture of others including those who focus on skills development of different dimensions.
The product mix on offer is also broad and varied; it includes academic courses as well as different types of professional and skills development programs. All these products and their providers take business promotion drives seriously; some of them may be more covert while others are even overt. A cursory look at Sunday newspaper advertisements gives the idea that millions are spent on colourful advertisements to promote institutions, individuals and courses. It shows that the higher education market is not only competitive, but also lucrative.
From the demand side, the buyers are selective; an element of choice that was not present a few decades ago has crept into domain of higher eduction as well. This is a drastic change that has engulfed all sectors and communities. People today have become more mindful of educational providers, teaching faculty, content, costs, relevance, quality, media and learning ambience. These were propositions that were unthinkable two decades ago. These two opposing forces have made higher education an extremely competitives enterprise. This situation is not peculiar to Sri Lanka. It is a worldwide trend and our neighbours such as India, Bangladesh and Nepal are not spared by these changes.
Another related area is the numbers game in terms of the number of people who seek opportunities and the number of seats that ate available for them. This is a stark reality in the higher eduction sector in particular. For instance, the number who sat for GCE (A/L) examinations stood at 201,686 in 2006 and the number selected to the university system of the country was a meagre 17,248. In 2009 this number increased to 225,000 whereas the number of places in the university system too has numerically increased to 21,000. However, the number of students entering universities as a ratio of those who sit for the Advanced Level examinations remain abysmally low; it is strikingly low for the age cohort comparing poorly with the rates for those neighbouring countries including Bangladesh.
There are many other issues that may be relevant. But they make the paper long and the arguments woolly. Suffice to state that the current demand and supply conditions pertaining to higher education in particular have created a massive void. It is this void that has attracted other providers who are genuinely capable of providing such services as well as those who want to derive quick financial benefits.
Here again the weekend newspapers provide ample proof of the complicated nature of the higher education ‘market’ in Sri Lanka. A word of caution regarding the use of the word ‘market’ is warranted here. It is used consciously because of the existence of the forces of demand for and the supply of higher education opportunities in the country. However, it does not necessarily mean that the arguments supports ‘unfettered marketism as proposed by some writers.
As in many other countries in South Asia, Sri Lanka too registers some resistance to private investments in the sphere of higher education. This resistance is partly attributed to what we believed to be ‘real’ reasons and other reasons that are ‘imaginary. Let us look at the real reason first.
Two important real reasons are a) quality assurance and b) social equity considerations. Both considerations are unquestionably valid. In a country where there is no regulatory mechanism to guide private investment on higher education, there is a real danger that diplomas and degrees can easily be generated for a price. Such a scenario can be extremely counter-productive in relation to the first assumption that ‘knowledge’ is the key driver of development.
However, the sorted knowledge imparted can hinder the very development process that it tries to inspire. The second aspect of social equity too can be equally valid as high-priced qualifications necessarily lead to widening the divide. This is primarily because only the rich can afford to buy such qualifications which trigger further accumulation.
The ‘imaginary’ reasons are mostly based on ideological considerations, attributions and assumptions. For example, higher education as a public good must be exclusively in the hands of the State. The expression that privertisation of education is inherently bad has become questionable in a situation where even primary education in Sri Lanka has a high element of private involvement and investments. A case in point is the private tuition that is quite pervasive at all levels of education.
According to the Consumer Finances and Socioeconomic Survey of the Central Bank, private investments that go into education have increased substantially both in rural and urban areas during the past few decades. These are voluntary investments or expenditure. There is growing private ‘health’ sector in the country patronised by both the rich and the poor.
Yet, there are seemingly valid apprehensions pertaining to the goals and ownership of private providers of higher education. Firstly, if there primary goal is ‘profitability’ it goes against the models operating in many other countries where the so-called private providers are identified as not-for-profit organisations. Secondly, with respect to ownership too, if investments are exclusive private funds it may be inconsistent with those models based on State/private endowment funds that contribute substantially to meet the expenses of private universities.
Thirdly, there can be questions regarding the quality of the faculty staff employed by those institutions. Eventually, there can be a likelihood of questionable institutions providing questionable qualifications. These are genuine anxieties that arise in the absence of regulatory mechanisms to guide private investments of credible sources and options in the country.
The public sector providers too are not totally free from criticism. Two important criticisms are worth mentioning here. The first question deals with the relevance of the qualifications provided by the public universities. This is a contentious issue. On the one hand, an evaluation regarding the attributes that make a qualification relevant or vice versa is not forthcoming.
On the other hand, the public university system has not made a genuine attempt to examine the extent of relevance of their qualifications and to rectify lapses if any. The second question deals with the expansion of the external degree programmes in the country which is argued to have become ‘degree mills’. The numbers involved in the external degree sector exceeds 300,000 learners following the so-called “easy-to-complete” combinations of subject disciplines to get degree certificates. This has become a negative externality as such qualifications trigger protest movements of unemployed graduates.
Challenges ahead
It is evident that the problem at hand is not simple. Higher education in Sri Lanka is plagued by a complicated mix of problems and issues that need carefully designed, but speedy and effective solutions, for instance, it is worth debating whether there is a space for striking a balance between private and public funds to augment opportunities for education.
In economics, education falls into the category of public goods where the State has to accept a major responsibility. However, the usefulness of private investments cannot be totally overlooked on account of the following six reasons:
1. Even today parents spend private funds for public education at all levels despite the fact that public education is supposed to be ‘free’.
2. Billions of valuable foreign exchange is drained by seeking education abroad. It is estimated that about 8,000 to 10,000 youth annually leave Sri Lanka for countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan at the low end and to Australia and America at the high end and leads to a high outflow of foreign exchange. The drain of foreign exchange in this manner is estimated to be in the range of US $ 4.5 to 8 billion annually.
3. If at least only part of this amount can be utilized to augment the capacities in our current higher education system, many of these students could be absorbed into the system at a relatively lower cost.
4. Further Sri Lanka can be made one of the centres of excellence in education in this region and thereby attract foreign students from South Asia and the rest of the Third World.
5. Many countries including India, China and Vietnam have moved away from totally public higher education institutions to fee levying institutions with sufficient safeguards to protect both ‘merit’ and ‘needy’ cohorts of the youth. Vietnam too has established private universities providing higher educational opportunities.
6. In any case Sri Lanka needs graduates capable of fulfilling its developmental demands. The current “output” of graduates which is about three percent of the population is perhaps the lowest in South Asia.
7. The budgetary imperatives of the country do not allow Sri Lanka to start many more public sector universities. Even if started, the rigidities in recruitment and compensation will not make the university system sustainable.
It is therefore necessary that a mechanism is evolved to garner private investments to develop a system of non-state university institution in the country. In addition there is the need to initiate a regulatory mechanism to assure the quality of programs offered and also to ensure that a quota of deserving students are provided with free or subsidised tuition.
Further, the university system should be made sufficiently flexible in terms of curricula changes to suit the demands of the country.
These imperatives have contributed to a situation which has demanded us to revisit the educational policy with respect to the establishment of a properly accredited system of non-State actors in higher education. There is of course a danger of misreading such an effort partly due to political expediency and partly on account of genuine fears of national interest.
These fears can be allayed only by creating space for debate and discussion regarding the issue at hand more fervently.
It is in this context that Sri Lanka should explore other avenues to solve its problems in higher education. In a country where 130,000 GCE A/L candidates acquire the minimum qualifications to enter the university system, only 20,000 students are admitted to the 14 conventional universities.
The media, political parties, and the civil society are fascinated by these limited numbers that are admitted. A simple content analysis of media reports and Parliament debates will show that the entire country has forgotten the destiny of the remaining 110,000 students who acquire the minimum qualifications or the others who are dropped out completely off the system owing to their inability to secure minimum marks.
Distance education
One might wonder as to why there is no mention about distance education in this article thus far. As far as the writer is concerned, it is the best policy option. It is best not because of one’s vested interest, but solely because it has been tried and teste both in the developing and developed world. For instance, the British Open University among the first 10 universities in the UK in terms of contribution to teaching, research and scholarship.
The Indira Gandhi Open University in India offers high quality study programs to cater to the needs of more than 1.8 million students scattered around different parts of the country and it too ranks very high in the overall academic ratings.
Likewise, there are many distance open universities in Germany, Israel etc that offer high quality educational programs to cater to both national and market needs of those countries.
The current information and communication technological revolution has opened many vistas to users of online resources and free services to acquire and enhance skills.
The Open University of Sri Lanka has ventured into teaching Natural Sciences Engineering Technology, IT, Law, Management and Social Sciences, Education and Nursing Education in Sri Lanka, many of which were inconceivable with the distance mode a few decades ago.
It is in this context that the education policy of this country needs to make an authentic and radical shift to exploit the true potentials of distance education to meet the challenges discussed above.
The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Open University of Sri Lanka.
SUNDAYOBSERVER.LK
Meeting challenges of higher education
by Prof. Upali Vidanapathirana
The expectations of the millennium development goals (MDG) were to come into force again in Cape Town, South Africa when heads of universities met in April to discuss and debate whether the fading link between higher education and MDG, can be re-established.
Frankly, much of the MDG fanfare in the 1990s is lost by now. In the developing countries fraught by problems of political turmoil, soaring energy prices, recession and droughts, MDGs receded to the background.
Sri Lanka, in contrast, has performed laudably in the spheres of primary education and gender equality while its poverty reduction records have also shown that it is on the verge of meeting the timelines. These are positive signs. However, there are a few other areas where Sri Lanka needs to purposefully engage in raising its performance. One such area is higher education. This sector demands a lot more discussion, debating and commitment at all levels.
The MDG decade that elapsed should have made us a little wiser for the sake of our own survival. The younger generation that is the target group of higher education is wise and knowledgable. Therefore, those of us who are responsible for guiding the youth of this country cannot afford to be complacent about what we do and when we do what we are supposed to do.
This is because the prosperity or peril of our generation will depend on our ability to invest purposefully on education improvements of the generation to come. Currently it is burdened by a myriad of real and supposed problems that need serious attention. The purpose of this article therefore is to reflect on the future of the higher education of this country.
A fundamental assumption of this paper is that the future of this country depends almost exclusively on investments on human capital. Sri Lanka like Japan has an abundance of human capital that requires both enhancement and enrichment. Sri Lankans by nature are hard working. Given the opportunity they are capable of proving their calibre.
This is shown by all those Sri Lankans who have migrated for Education, employment or resettlement. Our youth are a lot more trainable, committed and capable. However, while living in Sri Lanka most of us are lethargic. The list of these negative attributes of Sri Lankans living in Sri Lanka is long and endless.
The assumptions
It is in this background that Sri Lankan authorities need to be astute. Their design and plans need to be futuristic. This is because
a) human factor is our greatest endowment and
b) the future of the world will be driven by knowledge.
In this context there are two other important lessons we can learn. Those countries that are worse off than us today have done badly in human capital development. Sub-Saharan Africa speaks volumes in this regard. Conversely, other countries that are performing better today have invested more purposefully on human capital developments. East Asia can be a case in point. Thus our directions should be clear. What is perhaps unclear may be whether we have the desired sense of direction to take us to the future?
There are no alternatives with respect to investment on human capital. The growth of economies in this country will depend very much on our ability to generate energetic human capital and use them wisely; this is because today economies are driven by knowledge; by science and technology; by training and education and by research and dissemination of research findings for real world applications. However, there is a vital need to make them relevant to our long-term needs.
There is also a need to generate new knowledge that is relevant to us. This new knowledge needs to be exploited to generate value to the economy and hence ready for human consumption. These changes may be equally or even more important than our investments on roads, bridges and power stations we build, expecting a brighter tomorrow. It does not mean that those investments are irrelevant. They can be made really relevant only if we can create a generation of people who can productively and purposefully use them to make our future prosperous.
The orthodox interpretations of economics may differ here as they do not distinguish benefits of investments on human capital holistically. This may be why social returns on the investments on education are rated high only in the case of primary and secondary education. Nonetheless, higher education too generates important value addition because of its contribution to social equity and social harmony.
In general, engineers, doctors, scientists, technologists, accountants and economists appear to be more self-serving in their approach. This idea has emerged because their contribution to national development is less tangible. Therefore, we should change our matrix without blaming the object to be measured.
The challenges
First, the current conjecture demands a different tool kit that can be used to measure the socio-economic environment of Sri lanka resolutely and evolve strategies that are bold and unconventional. The war that drained this country both physically and morally is over. The economic crisis that engulfed the world since last year has shown signs of turning around. Interestingly, this crisis was useful as it changes socio-political and the economic order of the world substantially.
For instance, it has expedited the decimation of the uni-polar world order. There is also a change of ideological trusts. The ultra leftist as well as ultra-rightist views pertaining to politics also are undergoing change. These contextual changes have generated a need for striking a balance by seeking insights from different viewpoints and root them in our own cultural and social milieu.
Second, higher education has become an extremely competitive enterprise the world over (this feature is somewhat evident at primary education levels too). From the supply side, providers of education are numerous; they include the State sector, private sector, international providers, and a mixture of others including those who focus on skills development of different dimensions.
The product mix on offer is also broad and varied; it includes academic courses as well as different types of professional and skills development programs. All these products and their providers take business promotion drives seriously; some of them may be more covert while others are even overt. A cursory look at Sunday newspaper advertisements gives the idea that millions are spent on colourful advertisements to promote institutions, individuals and courses. It shows that the higher education market is not only competitive, but also lucrative.
From the demand side, the buyers are selective; an element of choice that was not present a few decades ago has crept into domain of higher eduction as well. This is a drastic change that has engulfed all sectors and communities. People today have become more mindful of educational providers, teaching faculty, content, costs, relevance, quality, media and learning ambience. These were propositions that were unthinkable two decades ago. These two opposing forces have made higher education an extremely competitives enterprise. This situation is not peculiar to Sri Lanka. It is a worldwide trend and our neighbours such as India, Bangladesh and Nepal are not spared by these changes.
Another related area is the numbers game in terms of the number of people who seek opportunities and the number of seats that ate available for them. This is a stark reality in the higher eduction sector in particular. For instance, the number who sat for GCE (A/L) examinations stood at 201,686 in 2006 and the number selected to the university system of the country was a meagre 17,248. In 2009 this number increased to 225,000 whereas the number of places in the university system too has numerically increased to 21,000. However, the number of students entering universities as a ratio of those who sit for the Advanced Level examinations remain abysmally low; it is strikingly low for the age cohort comparing poorly with the rates for those neighbouring countries including Bangladesh.
There are many other issues that may be relevant. But they make the paper long and the arguments woolly. Suffice to state that the current demand and supply conditions pertaining to higher education in particular have created a massive void. It is this void that has attracted other providers who are genuinely capable of providing such services as well as those who want to derive quick financial benefits.
Here again the weekend newspapers provide ample proof of the complicated nature of the higher education ‘market’ in Sri Lanka. A word of caution regarding the use of the word ‘market’ is warranted here. It is used consciously because of the existence of the forces of demand for and the supply of higher education opportunities in the country. However, it does not necessarily mean that the arguments supports ‘unfettered marketism as proposed by some writers.
As in many other countries in South Asia, Sri Lanka too registers some resistance to private investments in the sphere of higher education. This resistance is partly attributed to what we believed to be ‘real’ reasons and other reasons that are ‘imaginary. Let us look at the real reason first.
Two important real reasons are a) quality assurance and b) social equity considerations. Both considerations are unquestionably valid. In a country where there is no regulatory mechanism to guide private investment on higher education, there is a real danger that diplomas and degrees can easily be generated for a price. Such a scenario can be extremely counter-productive in relation to the first assumption that ‘knowledge’ is the key driver of development.
However, the sorted knowledge imparted can hinder the very development process that it tries to inspire. The second aspect of social equity too can be equally valid as high-priced qualifications necessarily lead to widening the divide. This is primarily because only the rich can afford to buy such qualifications which trigger further accumulation.
The ‘imaginary’ reasons are mostly based on ideological considerations, attributions and assumptions. For example, higher education as a public good must be exclusively in the hands of the State. The expression that privertisation of education is inherently bad has become questionable in a situation where even primary education in Sri Lanka has a high element of private involvement and investments. A case in point is the private tuition that is quite pervasive at all levels of education.
According to the Consumer Finances and Socioeconomic Survey of the Central Bank, private investments that go into education have increased substantially both in rural and urban areas during the past few decades. These are voluntary investments or expenditure. There is growing private ‘health’ sector in the country patronised by both the rich and the poor.
Yet, there are seemingly valid apprehensions pertaining to the goals and ownership of private providers of higher education. Firstly, if there primary goal is ‘profitability’ it goes against the models operating in many other countries where the so-called private providers are identified as not-for-profit organisations. Secondly, with respect to ownership too, if investments are exclusive private funds it may be inconsistent with those models based on State/private endowment funds that contribute substantially to meet the expenses of private universities.
Thirdly, there can be questions regarding the quality of the faculty staff employed by those institutions. Eventually, there can be a likelihood of questionable institutions providing questionable qualifications. These are genuine anxieties that arise in the absence of regulatory mechanisms to guide private investments of credible sources and options in the country.
The public sector providers too are not totally free from criticism. Two important criticisms are worth mentioning here. The first question deals with the relevance of the qualifications provided by the public universities. This is a contentious issue. On the one hand, an evaluation regarding the attributes that make a qualification relevant or vice versa is not forthcoming.
On the other hand, the public university system has not made a genuine attempt to examine the extent of relevance of their qualifications and to rectify lapses if any. The second question deals with the expansion of the external degree programmes in the country which is argued to have become ‘degree mills’. The numbers involved in the external degree sector exceeds 300,000 learners following the so-called “easy-to-complete” combinations of subject disciplines to get degree certificates. This has become a negative externality as such qualifications trigger protest movements of unemployed graduates.
Challenges ahead
It is evident that the problem at hand is not simple. Higher education in Sri Lanka is plagued by a complicated mix of problems and issues that need carefully designed, but speedy and effective solutions, for instance, it is worth debating whether there is a space for striking a balance between private and public funds to augment opportunities for education.
In economics, education falls into the category of public goods where the State has to accept a major responsibility. However, the usefulness of private investments cannot be totally overlooked on account of the following six reasons:
1. Even today parents spend private funds for public education at all levels despite the fact that public education is supposed to be ‘free’.
2. Billions of valuable foreign exchange is drained by seeking education abroad. It is estimated that about 8,000 to 10,000 youth annually leave Sri Lanka for countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan at the low end and to Australia and America at the high end and leads to a high outflow of foreign exchange. The drain of foreign exchange in this manner is estimated to be in the range of US $ 4.5 to 8 billion annually.
3. If at least only part of this amount can be utilized to augment the capacities in our current higher education system, many of these students could be absorbed into the system at a relatively lower cost.
4. Further Sri Lanka can be made one of the centres of excellence in education in this region and thereby attract foreign students from South Asia and the rest of the Third World.
5. Many countries including India, China and Vietnam have moved away from totally public higher education institutions to fee levying institutions with sufficient safeguards to protect both ‘merit’ and ‘needy’ cohorts of the youth. Vietnam too has established private universities providing higher educational opportunities.
6. In any case Sri Lanka needs graduates capable of fulfilling its developmental demands. The current “output” of graduates which is about three percent of the population is perhaps the lowest in South Asia.
7. The budgetary imperatives of the country do not allow Sri Lanka to start many more public sector universities. Even if started, the rigidities in recruitment and compensation will not make the university system sustainable.
It is therefore necessary that a mechanism is evolved to garner private investments to develop a system of non-state university institution in the country. In addition there is the need to initiate a regulatory mechanism to assure the quality of programs offered and also to ensure that a quota of deserving students are provided with free or subsidised tuition.
Further, the university system should be made sufficiently flexible in terms of curricula changes to suit the demands of the country.
These imperatives have contributed to a situation which has demanded us to revisit the educational policy with respect to the establishment of a properly accredited system of non-State actors in higher education. There is of course a danger of misreading such an effort partly due to political expediency and partly on account of genuine fears of national interest.
These fears can be allayed only by creating space for debate and discussion regarding the issue at hand more fervently.
It is in this context that Sri Lanka should explore other avenues to solve its problems in higher education. In a country where 130,000 GCE A/L candidates acquire the minimum qualifications to enter the university system, only 20,000 students are admitted to the 14 conventional universities.
The media, political parties, and the civil society are fascinated by these limited numbers that are admitted. A simple content analysis of media reports and Parliament debates will show that the entire country has forgotten the destiny of the remaining 110,000 students who acquire the minimum qualifications or the others who are dropped out completely off the system owing to their inability to secure minimum marks.
Distance education
One might wonder as to why there is no mention about distance education in this article thus far. As far as the writer is concerned, it is the best policy option. It is best not because of one’s vested interest, but solely because it has been tried and teste both in the developing and developed world. For instance, the British Open University among the first 10 universities in the UK in terms of contribution to teaching, research and scholarship.
The Indira Gandhi Open University in India offers high quality study programs to cater to the needs of more than 1.8 million students scattered around different parts of the country and it too ranks very high in the overall academic ratings.
Likewise, there are many distance open universities in Germany, Israel etc that offer high quality educational programs to cater to both national and market needs of those countries.
The current information and communication technological revolution has opened many vistas to users of online resources and free services to acquire and enhance skills.
The Open University of Sri Lanka has ventured into teaching Natural Sciences Engineering Technology, IT, Law, Management and Social Sciences, Education and Nursing Education in Sri Lanka, many of which were inconceivable with the distance mode a few decades ago.
It is in this context that the education policy of this country needs to make an authentic and radical shift to exploit the true potentials of distance education to meet the challenges discussed above.
The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Open University of Sri Lanka.
SUNDAYOBSERVER.LK
Thursday, April 29, 2010
48% of Candidates of G.C.E. O/L examination-2009 have failed according to results issued by the Dep of Exams! 1,47,000 Passed Out of 2,77,260! SHAME!
48% unsuccessful at O/L
Thursday, 29 April 2010 10:30
48% of the candidates who sat the G.C.E. O/L examination in 2009 have failed according to results issued by the Department of Examinations. 2,77,260 candidates sat the O/L examination and only 1,47,000 have qualified to study in the G.C.E. A/L classes.
51% of the candidates have passed Mathematics which equals the proportion that passed the subject in 2008. 45% has passed Science which is 2% less than last year. 25% has failed Sinhalese while the figure for 2008 was only 19% failures. 25% has failed Tamil, the same number that failed in 2008.
There are 16,500 candidates who have passed only one subject and failed in 8 subjects. The number that has passed two subjects and failed in seven subjects is 18,000. There are 20,300 candidates who passed four subjects and failed in five. 22,800 have passed five subjects and failed in four.
Meanwhile there are 19,000 who sat nine subjects and failed all these subjects. Last year this figure was 16,000.
LANKATRUTH.COM
Thursday, 29 April 2010 10:30
48% of the candidates who sat the G.C.E. O/L examination in 2009 have failed according to results issued by the Department of Examinations. 2,77,260 candidates sat the O/L examination and only 1,47,000 have qualified to study in the G.C.E. A/L classes.
51% of the candidates have passed Mathematics which equals the proportion that passed the subject in 2008. 45% has passed Science which is 2% less than last year. 25% has failed Sinhalese while the figure for 2008 was only 19% failures. 25% has failed Tamil, the same number that failed in 2008.
There are 16,500 candidates who have passed only one subject and failed in 8 subjects. The number that has passed two subjects and failed in seven subjects is 18,000. There are 20,300 candidates who passed four subjects and failed in five. 22,800 have passed five subjects and failed in four.
Meanwhile there are 19,000 who sat nine subjects and failed all these subjects. Last year this figure was 16,000.
LANKATRUTH.COM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
A radical new teaching method that has been pioneered in India, Africa and Latin America is catching on in Britain..!!!
Teaching: Inspiring British children, Slumdog style
By Max Davidson
A radical new teaching method that has been pioneered in India, Africa and Latin America is catching on in Britain, says Max Davidson.
"I don’t mind children cribbing answers off other children," says Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Newcastle. "It’s one of the ways they can learn. I also don’t think there should be too many constraints on what they can look at on the internet."
Have your say: How can we encourage children to think for themselves?
Controversial views, perhaps, but then Professor Mitra, originally from India, is no stranger to controversy. He is an educational radical whose unorthodox experiments in the slums of New Delhi – experiments that were part of the inspiration for the blockbuster film Slumdog Millionaire – have sent ripples around the world.
In what became known as the Hole in the Wall project, Mitra simply knocked through a wall in his Delhi office and installed a computer with an internet connection for the local slum children to discover. To his delight he found that they soon became fully fledged autodidacts, teaching themselves English, maths and other subjects.
"It became obvious that children were capable of working by themselves, without help from teachers," Mitra says. More to the point, the children wanted to learn, not just play computer games.
His one quibble about the movie, which drew on his findings, was that it was not called Slumdog Nobel Laureate. "After all, the whole point of the Hole in the Wall project was to encourage children to think beyond monetary gain and want to change the world, not simply become rich."
As his academic standing rocketed, Mitra conducted similar experiments in other parts of the world, from Africa to Latin America. He is now working with children at three schools in the north-east of England, including St Aidan’s C of E primary in Gateshead, where nine-year-old children are to be found researching school topics on computers, unaided by teachers. The result is what Mitra calls a Self-Organised Learning Environment, or SOLE.
How does SOLE work in practice? "The children are given a SATS or GCSE question, then divided into groups of four, each group with its own computer, and given half an hour, say, to find the answer via Google, Wikipedia or other websites. The groups compete with each other, which is good, but children also range freely around the room, seeing what other groups are doing, which is also good. There is a healthy mixture of competition and collaboration," Mitra says.
Sometimes a teacher is there but for Mitra the presence of a teacher can be a problem not a solution. "If children know there is someone standing over them who knows all the answers, they are less inclined to find the answers for themselves. It would be better, in a way, if any adults present were completely uneducated. There is nothing children like more than passing on information they have just discovered to people who may not already have it – an elderly grandmother, for instance."
Gateshead is a long way from New Delhi and these are not slum children, but it is significant that the English schools Mitra has chosen for his experiment are in areas of social deprivation, rather than middle-class enclaves. "The best schools tend to have the best teachers, not to mention parents who supervise homework, so there is less need for self-organised learning," he says. "But where a child comes from a less supportive home environment, where there are family tensions perhaps, their schoolwork can suffer. They need to be taught to think and study for themselves."
© The Telegraph Group
London 2010
www island.lk
By Max Davidson
A radical new teaching method that has been pioneered in India, Africa and Latin America is catching on in Britain, says Max Davidson.
"I don’t mind children cribbing answers off other children," says Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Newcastle. "It’s one of the ways they can learn. I also don’t think there should be too many constraints on what they can look at on the internet."
Have your say: How can we encourage children to think for themselves?
Controversial views, perhaps, but then Professor Mitra, originally from India, is no stranger to controversy. He is an educational radical whose unorthodox experiments in the slums of New Delhi – experiments that were part of the inspiration for the blockbuster film Slumdog Millionaire – have sent ripples around the world.
In what became known as the Hole in the Wall project, Mitra simply knocked through a wall in his Delhi office and installed a computer with an internet connection for the local slum children to discover. To his delight he found that they soon became fully fledged autodidacts, teaching themselves English, maths and other subjects.
"It became obvious that children were capable of working by themselves, without help from teachers," Mitra says. More to the point, the children wanted to learn, not just play computer games.
His one quibble about the movie, which drew on his findings, was that it was not called Slumdog Nobel Laureate. "After all, the whole point of the Hole in the Wall project was to encourage children to think beyond monetary gain and want to change the world, not simply become rich."
As his academic standing rocketed, Mitra conducted similar experiments in other parts of the world, from Africa to Latin America. He is now working with children at three schools in the north-east of England, including St Aidan’s C of E primary in Gateshead, where nine-year-old children are to be found researching school topics on computers, unaided by teachers. The result is what Mitra calls a Self-Organised Learning Environment, or SOLE.
How does SOLE work in practice? "The children are given a SATS or GCSE question, then divided into groups of four, each group with its own computer, and given half an hour, say, to find the answer via Google, Wikipedia or other websites. The groups compete with each other, which is good, but children also range freely around the room, seeing what other groups are doing, which is also good. There is a healthy mixture of competition and collaboration," Mitra says.
Sometimes a teacher is there but for Mitra the presence of a teacher can be a problem not a solution. "If children know there is someone standing over them who knows all the answers, they are less inclined to find the answers for themselves. It would be better, in a way, if any adults present were completely uneducated. There is nothing children like more than passing on information they have just discovered to people who may not already have it – an elderly grandmother, for instance."
Gateshead is a long way from New Delhi and these are not slum children, but it is significant that the English schools Mitra has chosen for his experiment are in areas of social deprivation, rather than middle-class enclaves. "The best schools tend to have the best teachers, not to mention parents who supervise homework, so there is less need for self-organised learning," he says. "But where a child comes from a less supportive home environment, where there are family tensions perhaps, their schoolwork can suffer. They need to be taught to think and study for themselves."
© The Telegraph Group
London 2010
www island.lk
Education; planning for the future....!!!
Education; planning for the future
by Douglas King
Few can deny the success of the eradication of the LTTE and the opportunities it has created for Sri Lanka to develop peaceful and economically viable policies. Similar bold decisions need to be taken about education and must surely rank uppermost in priority. Despite numerous initiatives and huge amounts of money, donations or long term loans, most aspects of education remain in the doldrums. No longer can the government rest in the satisfaction of a 95% basic literacy, and a virtually free education system available to every child everywhere in the country. Now is the time to look beyond the here and now towards a future educational system befitting a third millennium perspective.
It surely seems a misguided policy to aim for a laptop for every child. The sheer logistics and cost of such an initiative are prohibitive. Is such an idea deemed a panacea for all educational woes? Is it the magic bullet that will catapult Sri Lanka into the club of first-world countries? The recent donation of 100 laptops by HNB to the children of a rural primary school, makes for good public relations but of little educational improvements. Apart from the security and maintenance difficulties, computer classes for parents were not initiated. Anyone, especially those in rural areas, who uses the internet provided by SLT or Mobitel knows only too well the varying reliability and speed according to day and time. How will these laptops really benefit these children? Has there been any research or pilot studies into such a project? How much better it would have been to provide the school with a small purpose built computer classroom complete with a multi-media projector.
A visitor to many classrooms in schools (or universities) would see little difference from their own school days. For the most part teaching still relies on the chalk and talk monopolized by teachers. Blackboards (and a few whiteboards) still display basic computation sums and spelling lists. New text books come and go, with thousands of outdated books piled high in storerooms. Seminars that give teachers time away from the classroom rather than providing educational inputs, remain the standby of in-service education. A bureaucratic administration includes many thousands employed at the Ministry of Education, the N.I.E., Provincial and Divisional educational offices.
Yet go into numerous schools, not only in rural areas, and all too often several grades will be sharing a common hall, with only a small space separating each class. Teachers may put a brave face on such conditions but know they cannot teach effectively with such visual and noisy distractions from adjacent classes. Even where separate classroom exists, the divide between classes maybe a half wall, so each teacher must still compete to overcome the noise interference from her neighbours. Beyond the classrooms, toilet facilities for students and teachers are basic, and many smaller rural schools have no running water or electricity. Numerous so-called popular schools blatantly ignore rulings on maximum class size by allowing in excess of fifty students in some classes.
One area of success that the government can claim is the gradual privatization of education. In numerous ways it has encouraged private institutions from pre-school to higher education. The rapid bourgeoning of international schools, which in reality are private English medium schools, says much for failed language policies of successive governments. The best of these schools receive official endorsement with key government luminaries invited as special guests for speech days and sport meets. With fees as low as Rs;1500 a month, these schools ensure that their students acquire the advantage of English language, written and spoken, without the need to attend extra and sometimes useless tuition classes. Only a minority of students at government schools achieve a similar standard of English.
Tuition classes are now a parallel education system with an estimated 80% of students attending one or more classes every week. The government turns a Nelsonian eye on thousands of these unregulated classes, as to their operation. Anyone, anywhere at anytime can conduct a tuition class from a few students in the teacher’s home to several hundreds packed into makeshift halls crammed with wooden benches. If students achieve good grades in their ordinary and advanced level examinations, much of the credit is due to the tuition classes that virtually all students attend.
As many as 12,000 pre-schools, wrongly termed Montessoris, can be found in every town and village. The majority are privately run for profit and like the tuition classes abide by few regulations as to physical conditions or qualifications of teachers. Most are little more than playgroups with educational input confined to workbooks that children fill with repetitive copying of the alphabet and numerals. The thousands of teachers with relevant pre-school qualifications appear not to have understood basic good practice in early childhood education.
Student numbers in private higher educational colleges far exceed those attending government universities. A walk along the full length of the Peradiniya Road in Kandy indicates clearly how many of these colleges exist. There are few regulations, government supervision or quality control, and degrees covering every subject are awarded, usually endorsed by a foreign university. Competitions to enroll students is intense, and various inducements are offered by way of minimum entry requirements and extended loans. No need to study for A levels, as some colleges offer direct enrollment to degree courses after completing O level examinations. The fact that many of these graduates will be adding to the list of the unemployed, seems of little consequence.
Whether because of, or in spite of government policies, education has become an obsession with so many families. What is not questioned or properly understood, is that quantity is replacing quality. Many primary schools now begin intensive scholarship examination tuition from grade three, whether from parental pressure or from improving their status and image. Research indicates that such measures make little difference to results, since the tuition is confined to an endless completion of previous test papers rather than intellectual development.
Only massive investment will ensure a real improvement, and although hundreds of millions of dollars have been fed into the system, the gains are marginal. Like too many policies, solutions are arrived at before a proper understanding of the problems. State education is so politically entrenched, that it requires the authority of an executive President to initiate a change of direction and even then his subordinates are reluctant to follow through. The best education is available to a minority of students in both government and private schools. A recent Presidential donation of Rs:30 million to the Ananda School swimming pool in Kandy, may have boosted his popularity for election, but other schools in the vicinity could have benefited from this money to have improved their very basic facilities.
Computers and ICT must become part of a modern educational system. Virtually every school in the UK maintains a website, often designed and maintained by students. Very few schools in Sri Lanka have websites and even fewer schools incorporate computer technology into their administration. Traditional typewriters are still in wide use. Real computer literacy among government servants is still low and institutions such as the courts, police and hospitals have hardly been touched by IT. Exploring web sites of Ministries and few have web sites that show innovation or creativity, and too often links don’t function and information is out of date. The Ministry of Education has never exploited basic audio-visual materials such as audio cassettes or more recently CD and DVD disks. In language studies there are easy ways to make stimulating and meaningful lessons. Few schools can provide the science equipment or experiments that could be made available on purpose-made DVDs displayed on a large screen from a multi-media projector. Studying aspects of science, maths, history and music through high quality multi-media could greatly complement the chalk, talk and textbooks that do little to inspire many students. The best and gifted teachers can now be available in every classroom even in remote rural schools. All that is required is a laptop computer with a multi-media projector at a combined cost of around Rs 130,000. A further Rs: 50,000 would provide a small petrol generator.
At the heart of such innovation is the quantity and quality of the multi-media content. Several years ago the author offered to personally fund in full a project to produce suitable cassettes, CDs and DVDs, mainly for English language but also for science. He suggested that a team of four experienced teachers be seconded to the project for an initial 3 months. Despite numerous letters to departments, colleges and individuals, as usual, not a single response was forthcoming. Had the same proposal emanated from the World Bank along with a multi dollar donation, the interest would have been immediate since money would have been available in a "flexible" way. It seems that the adage "we do what we know and we know what we do" is all pervasive.
With current technology, making multi-media lessons and content has become simplified. A good working knowledge of PowerPoint, Adobe and Audacity programs are ample to produce CD or DVD lessons. Producing quality websites is easily learnt using WYSIWYG applications. Since recordable disks cost less than 20 rupees each they are well within the budget of schools and individuals. As for hardware, computers and quality cameras, are now relatively inexpensive and filming and editing skills easily acquired. The sooner government realizes that a computer is just a piece of technology and the real question is how it is utilized and for what purposes.
Already some influential people in government are saying that interactive whiteboards are the way forward. Educational research, which seems not to have been consulted, points out conclusively that at the heart of educational excellence is a teacher who thoroughly knows her subject; how to teach and test it effectively; has suitable teaching conditions, and is dedicated to her students. The computer, and its multi-media applications, can make teaching more stimulating and effective, but since such teachers are only found in the top 10% of the profession, even more reason to provide the remaining 90% a technological backup.
Meanwhile, the political gains from a "laptop for every student" and "2009 Year of IT and English" will continue to dominate the education scene, albeit that they will have little real educational impact. The President has an opportunity to appoint a new Minister of Education. Hopefully he will offer such an important Ministry to someone with political will and educational experience, and of equal importance a person who is innovative and pro-active.
Douglas King douglasking1939@yahoo.com
Footnote: Take a look at the internet site www.youtube.com/jarjumsinkandy to view many short pre-school teacher training videos made by the author using a small digital camera and laptop with a total value of Rs:60,000. He has also made many short programs to assist with teaching English.
The writer is an educational consultant specializing in Early Childhood Education, TEFL and ICT. His experience includes teaching at every level from pre-school to university, in several developing and developed countries.
www island.lk
by Douglas King
Few can deny the success of the eradication of the LTTE and the opportunities it has created for Sri Lanka to develop peaceful and economically viable policies. Similar bold decisions need to be taken about education and must surely rank uppermost in priority. Despite numerous initiatives and huge amounts of money, donations or long term loans, most aspects of education remain in the doldrums. No longer can the government rest in the satisfaction of a 95% basic literacy, and a virtually free education system available to every child everywhere in the country. Now is the time to look beyond the here and now towards a future educational system befitting a third millennium perspective.
It surely seems a misguided policy to aim for a laptop for every child. The sheer logistics and cost of such an initiative are prohibitive. Is such an idea deemed a panacea for all educational woes? Is it the magic bullet that will catapult Sri Lanka into the club of first-world countries? The recent donation of 100 laptops by HNB to the children of a rural primary school, makes for good public relations but of little educational improvements. Apart from the security and maintenance difficulties, computer classes for parents were not initiated. Anyone, especially those in rural areas, who uses the internet provided by SLT or Mobitel knows only too well the varying reliability and speed according to day and time. How will these laptops really benefit these children? Has there been any research or pilot studies into such a project? How much better it would have been to provide the school with a small purpose built computer classroom complete with a multi-media projector.
A visitor to many classrooms in schools (or universities) would see little difference from their own school days. For the most part teaching still relies on the chalk and talk monopolized by teachers. Blackboards (and a few whiteboards) still display basic computation sums and spelling lists. New text books come and go, with thousands of outdated books piled high in storerooms. Seminars that give teachers time away from the classroom rather than providing educational inputs, remain the standby of in-service education. A bureaucratic administration includes many thousands employed at the Ministry of Education, the N.I.E., Provincial and Divisional educational offices.
Yet go into numerous schools, not only in rural areas, and all too often several grades will be sharing a common hall, with only a small space separating each class. Teachers may put a brave face on such conditions but know they cannot teach effectively with such visual and noisy distractions from adjacent classes. Even where separate classroom exists, the divide between classes maybe a half wall, so each teacher must still compete to overcome the noise interference from her neighbours. Beyond the classrooms, toilet facilities for students and teachers are basic, and many smaller rural schools have no running water or electricity. Numerous so-called popular schools blatantly ignore rulings on maximum class size by allowing in excess of fifty students in some classes.
One area of success that the government can claim is the gradual privatization of education. In numerous ways it has encouraged private institutions from pre-school to higher education. The rapid bourgeoning of international schools, which in reality are private English medium schools, says much for failed language policies of successive governments. The best of these schools receive official endorsement with key government luminaries invited as special guests for speech days and sport meets. With fees as low as Rs;1500 a month, these schools ensure that their students acquire the advantage of English language, written and spoken, without the need to attend extra and sometimes useless tuition classes. Only a minority of students at government schools achieve a similar standard of English.
Tuition classes are now a parallel education system with an estimated 80% of students attending one or more classes every week. The government turns a Nelsonian eye on thousands of these unregulated classes, as to their operation. Anyone, anywhere at anytime can conduct a tuition class from a few students in the teacher’s home to several hundreds packed into makeshift halls crammed with wooden benches. If students achieve good grades in their ordinary and advanced level examinations, much of the credit is due to the tuition classes that virtually all students attend.
As many as 12,000 pre-schools, wrongly termed Montessoris, can be found in every town and village. The majority are privately run for profit and like the tuition classes abide by few regulations as to physical conditions or qualifications of teachers. Most are little more than playgroups with educational input confined to workbooks that children fill with repetitive copying of the alphabet and numerals. The thousands of teachers with relevant pre-school qualifications appear not to have understood basic good practice in early childhood education.
Student numbers in private higher educational colleges far exceed those attending government universities. A walk along the full length of the Peradiniya Road in Kandy indicates clearly how many of these colleges exist. There are few regulations, government supervision or quality control, and degrees covering every subject are awarded, usually endorsed by a foreign university. Competitions to enroll students is intense, and various inducements are offered by way of minimum entry requirements and extended loans. No need to study for A levels, as some colleges offer direct enrollment to degree courses after completing O level examinations. The fact that many of these graduates will be adding to the list of the unemployed, seems of little consequence.
Whether because of, or in spite of government policies, education has become an obsession with so many families. What is not questioned or properly understood, is that quantity is replacing quality. Many primary schools now begin intensive scholarship examination tuition from grade three, whether from parental pressure or from improving their status and image. Research indicates that such measures make little difference to results, since the tuition is confined to an endless completion of previous test papers rather than intellectual development.
Only massive investment will ensure a real improvement, and although hundreds of millions of dollars have been fed into the system, the gains are marginal. Like too many policies, solutions are arrived at before a proper understanding of the problems. State education is so politically entrenched, that it requires the authority of an executive President to initiate a change of direction and even then his subordinates are reluctant to follow through. The best education is available to a minority of students in both government and private schools. A recent Presidential donation of Rs:30 million to the Ananda School swimming pool in Kandy, may have boosted his popularity for election, but other schools in the vicinity could have benefited from this money to have improved their very basic facilities.
Computers and ICT must become part of a modern educational system. Virtually every school in the UK maintains a website, often designed and maintained by students. Very few schools in Sri Lanka have websites and even fewer schools incorporate computer technology into their administration. Traditional typewriters are still in wide use. Real computer literacy among government servants is still low and institutions such as the courts, police and hospitals have hardly been touched by IT. Exploring web sites of Ministries and few have web sites that show innovation or creativity, and too often links don’t function and information is out of date. The Ministry of Education has never exploited basic audio-visual materials such as audio cassettes or more recently CD and DVD disks. In language studies there are easy ways to make stimulating and meaningful lessons. Few schools can provide the science equipment or experiments that could be made available on purpose-made DVDs displayed on a large screen from a multi-media projector. Studying aspects of science, maths, history and music through high quality multi-media could greatly complement the chalk, talk and textbooks that do little to inspire many students. The best and gifted teachers can now be available in every classroom even in remote rural schools. All that is required is a laptop computer with a multi-media projector at a combined cost of around Rs 130,000. A further Rs: 50,000 would provide a small petrol generator.
At the heart of such innovation is the quantity and quality of the multi-media content. Several years ago the author offered to personally fund in full a project to produce suitable cassettes, CDs and DVDs, mainly for English language but also for science. He suggested that a team of four experienced teachers be seconded to the project for an initial 3 months. Despite numerous letters to departments, colleges and individuals, as usual, not a single response was forthcoming. Had the same proposal emanated from the World Bank along with a multi dollar donation, the interest would have been immediate since money would have been available in a "flexible" way. It seems that the adage "we do what we know and we know what we do" is all pervasive.
With current technology, making multi-media lessons and content has become simplified. A good working knowledge of PowerPoint, Adobe and Audacity programs are ample to produce CD or DVD lessons. Producing quality websites is easily learnt using WYSIWYG applications. Since recordable disks cost less than 20 rupees each they are well within the budget of schools and individuals. As for hardware, computers and quality cameras, are now relatively inexpensive and filming and editing skills easily acquired. The sooner government realizes that a computer is just a piece of technology and the real question is how it is utilized and for what purposes.
Already some influential people in government are saying that interactive whiteboards are the way forward. Educational research, which seems not to have been consulted, points out conclusively that at the heart of educational excellence is a teacher who thoroughly knows her subject; how to teach and test it effectively; has suitable teaching conditions, and is dedicated to her students. The computer, and its multi-media applications, can make teaching more stimulating and effective, but since such teachers are only found in the top 10% of the profession, even more reason to provide the remaining 90% a technological backup.
Meanwhile, the political gains from a "laptop for every student" and "2009 Year of IT and English" will continue to dominate the education scene, albeit that they will have little real educational impact. The President has an opportunity to appoint a new Minister of Education. Hopefully he will offer such an important Ministry to someone with political will and educational experience, and of equal importance a person who is innovative and pro-active.
Douglas King douglasking1939@yahoo.com
Footnote: Take a look at the internet site www.youtube.com/jarjumsinkandy to view many short pre-school teacher training videos made by the author using a small digital camera and laptop with a total value of Rs:60,000. He has also made many short programs to assist with teaching English.
The writer is an educational consultant specializing in Early Childhood Education, TEFL and ICT. His experience includes teaching at every level from pre-school to university, in several developing and developed countries.
www island.lk
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