System or Attitude; a perspective on the higher education system in Sri Lanka

Education is considered one of the tools which enabled a civilized society among human beings. However, the current circumstances in the country portray a disturbed outlook in terms of a few education fraternities. As a country with, one of the higher rates of literacy in Asia, the education plays a significant role in shaping up one's career and life along with the entire society.

A glimpse of past: For the majority of the twentieth century our higher education system was more of a choice between Science and Arts. In other terms, the question of the life was, do you want to be a doctor or not? It was an era dominated by medicine, engineering, law and accountancy, which were considered as respectable and lucrative career options. One of the primary reason for such situation was their predominance among job opportunities and their availability in the state- owned universities which were the only mode of tertiary education.

Jump to the present: The 7km stretch of the Galle road (and the Duplication road) from Kollupitiya junction to Dehiwala junction is the host of more than 70 institutes offering various forms of higher education. Such a trend is also observed not only within the city of Colombo, but throughout the country, especially in the urban centres like Kandy, Galle, and Jaffna etc.

More than 150000 students qualify to enter universities every year from the government schools alone where the number of seats in the state-owned universities is a shade over than 25000 per intake. With options to choose and pathways to follow, still among the majority of our population, the question of the life remains the same; do you want to be a doctor or not? From a yesteryear’s perspective, it was justifiable consider such ‘respectable and lucrative’ options due to lack of exposure and availability of other streams. However, current day scenario demands an open minded approach towards higher education with the availability of an array of cohorts.

Though there are grievances in terms of the assurance of quality and standards of education from the privately owned institute, the same in turn applies to the traditional sources of state-owned system as well. On the other hand, such private institutes, in-turn provide with an array of new avenues to the students which are otherwise unaffordable for the majority of the population, to travel abroad and undertake such programmes. Systems can continuously be blamed for such scenarios, however, no system is ever perfect even in the nations who have pioneered in higher education.

More than who the provider is and the degree of quality of such education, an array of queries remains to be answered in terms of the attitude towards the novel modes of education, beyond the traditional means. Rather than forcing our children to become doctors and engineers ignoring their areas of interests and wishes, it is necessary to guide them in pursuing their dreams with heaps of opportunities available around the corner. Easier said and done, such transformation requires a change in the attitude of our perspectives towards higher education. In other words, the questions for the life should be, what do you want to study about? 

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