Talk2012

Sustaining Education:
More Questions than Answers
Chulantha Kulasekere
Discussion Topics
July 12, 2012
Chulantha Sustaining Education

Idea will be centered on
Increasing income of university lecturers (The real A-list problem
where the B-list will be forgotten if satisﬁed)
Agitating, in my opinion is “short lived” with the increase danger of
nothing being done until “agitation sets in”
NOT talk about increasing income via consultancies (unfair since only
a small number get them)
Identify sources of funding which could improve the university system.
What I ask ...
Listen with an open mind.
What I will not do...
...is to add more statistics to the existing

Sources
Central bank data http://www.treasury.gov.lk/
CIA fact sheets
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
UNESCO institute of statistics http://stats.uis.unesco.org/
LIRNEasia research documents http://lirneasia.net/
World bank data http://data.worldbank.org/

The framework

Attributed too ..
At human resource level
Staff attraction: If the staff member compares the
current market value and the starting salary
Staff retention: Not being able to do what he/she
envisages, no funding to do work
At university level
Sustaining quality inputs to current programs
Expansion of university system

Before we go any further ..
A word of caution
Comparing numbers is good. But the correct thing to
do is to compare numbers equivalent to post-war
developing time of countries. Comparisons of current
numbers may not be very correct even though we do it.
The budgetary allocations are very diﬀerent in a
developed economy versus a developing nation.

Public spending on education, total (% of government
expenditure)-West

Public spending on education, total (% of government
expenditure)-East

LKR Value of expenditure on education

Expenditure on Higher Education

Possible reasons for public funding
Reason 1
For the past two years the government has shifted its
policy on private education.
Reason 2
For the post war era the priorities of the government is
shifted from human capital development to
infrastructure development.
Comment
This is a chicken an egg situation. With a $59,172 million GDP where
does one allocate money and when? Who balances out the short term
priorities with long term priorities such as education

Committed undisbursed balance - end April 2012

Seoul-Busan highway
Korea from rags to riches
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/06/291 64624.html
Iron ﬁsted ruler President Park Chung-hee (1961-1979): unpopular
move to build a highway connecting Seoul and Busan.
“The astronomical sums which were necessary for highway
construction would be better spent on the improvement of the
existing local road network.” - Opposition
In 1967, when the plan was announced to build a highway, Korea had
less than 100,000 cars
The World Bank joined the chorus of criticism: its study concluded
that the project would be “economically and technologically
unfeasible.”
It’s now clear that President Park’s vision, once much derided and
criticized, has proved to be correct.
So who is right? Could he have spent the $ 43 on education?

Government investment in infrastructure
Comment
No free lunch

The China Experience
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-03/13/c 131464418.htm
China’s education has been pursuing the ”4%” for about 20 years
since 1992
During the mid-1980s, China’s spending on education had been lower
than 3% of GDP.
Higher spending on education is beneﬁcial to almost every family in
China. Why did it take the country 19 years to increase education
spending to 4% of GDP?
First, as the central government has taken economic development as
the country’s primary task, almost all local governments are thirsty
for investment, and are least willing to invest in education.
Due to their obsession with GDP growth and lack of transparency and
supervision, education always takes the smallest share of government
spending.

The bottom line
We have been agitating from time to time, however increasing of
public spending on education is not forthcoming
In many countries, education spending gets a step motherly
treatment. Ours is no diﬀerent.
Government is gunning for alternate funded HEIs (eg. SLIIT, NSBM
Homagama campus etc.)
Are we heading into an era where we are asked to fund ourselves?
do we see a trend in targeted funding?
How many state funded HEIs in the world have paying students?
Is the KDU the starting point for this model?
Comment
We don’t like this, but remember we did not like international
schools too, but they are here to stay

private inputs vs. Private investments - LIRNEasia
Private inputs or investments in HEIs have become an imperative for
developing countries who are struggling to meet the demand for
better primary and secondary education opportunities for children.
n 1997, Chinese government allowed their public universities to charge
fees to cover 25% of operating costs. As a result, university
enrollments in China tripled from 6.1 million to 19 million in the 6
years spanning 1997-2003.
Neighboring India and Bangladesh too have introduced regulatory
frameworks that encourage private investments. India has always had
a system of private colleges aﬃliated with public universities.
While many of these colleges receive government subsidies in ,
student-fees cover some of all of operational costs.
Stand alone private universities were few in India until 2003.
Subsequent to the enactment of an Act in 2003 for the
‘Establishment of and Maintenance of Standards in Private
Universities’, 107 private universities have been established in India,
bringing the percent of private universities to 14%.

private inputs vs. Private investments - LIRNEasia
Similarly, in Bangladesh, since the enactment of the private higher
education act in 1992, the percent of private institutions has risen to
62% of the total. Medical colleges in Chittagong, for example, now
attract a sizable Sri Lank student population.
What is noteworthy about policies in these countries is their
astuteness in combining public and private investments to increase
overall access to higher education.
In almost all countries, including the USA, ﬁnancial support and
oversight for public institutions are provided by the state but the
admission process and the overall management is largely determined
by the institutions themselves.
Typically, about one third of operational expenses are recovered
through fees for tuition charged to students and students loans on
generous terms are made available to students.
Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is stuck in a mode where, the term public
university has come to mean not only public ownership, but centrally
controlled admission and a tuition-free education.

Moving from free education to accountable
Before we move forward
If the funding does not come from state should we
look elsewhere - Yes
Is this something we can achieve in the short term
- No (Man did not walk the moon in one day)
Should we be exploring this option and talking
about it - Yes
Is it political suicide - Depends
Does it require structural changes to our thinking -
Yes
Is it implementable - Who knows, if we talk
enough about it we may ﬁnd a way

Moving from free education to accountable education
Decouple entrance selection from payment
Every student who enters a HEI pays
Government provides per/student funding as a loan for X number of
graduates who cannot fund themselves (currently X=820 for
engineering)
Loan is paid back in 25 years
Graduates who join the university will have the loan converted to a
bond for service
Graduates who join the government sector will only pay 50% of the
loan in 25 years
Graduates who go abroad can pay back the amount in lesser time
Graduates who spend the minimum duration to obtain degree will have
to only pay 75% each year delayed will rack up the price
Foreign and local students who meet or exceed the intake standard
can also join the university (payments to be decided)
Since everyone pays it possibly less unfair to people. Note: Locals
who opt to study should be selected to be in the z-score range
immediately after the cutoﬀ for the public funded students.

The positives
Students would be encouraged to stay the minimum time in the
university
Increased opportunity for higher education for our students, less
money will ﬂow out of the country
The earnings can be used to supplement salaries of staﬀ on a
performance basis (rules and regulations need to be looked at)
Capital investment can be increased with the increased earnings
The presence of foreign students in the program will enhance the
quality and relevancy. One step close to going global.
Increased funding for research
People will think twice before blindly following a degree program
The government policy in providing autonomy for HEIs falls
within this

The negatives
Messing with the Main campus may not be a way to go - have
satellite campuses
Extremely diﬃcult to formulate the rules and regulations to
provide the necessary autonomy
Will not be a popular idea with many since we always think we
need to get many free things
Selection of foreign students may be an issue
the same will go for local students
Need to ﬁnd a way not to let politicians to interfere with the
process (this is of course near impossible!)
The government who will give X number of loan grants will still
feel it has control of the institute

“We are here because of free education, so we need to
protect it”
There is no free education, someone pays for it. With this, we are
making the person who beneﬁts accountable for the spending
We are not here because of free education, we are here because of
“access to good education”
We are bad examples to justify free education. people who join the
carders of universities are in the minority.
for departments like Electronics, more than 70% end up abroad within
the ﬁrst 5 years. ROI maybe negative. Why should the government
loose money for 99 students just to fund one students who comes
back?
When an uneducated person goes abroad (middle east) they leave the
family behind, hence $$s return to the country. When an educated
person goes abroad, they take the family and never return any (or
minimal) money back to the country.
The government investment is lost. I said this in 1992.

Workers’ Remittances

Some random thoughts
The SLUS might fail I think. We will be fighting someone else’s
battle. Form an Engineers Union since we have specific problems
When someone joins the staff, after confirmation, you can request the
government to give a loan of about 5 million on concessionary rates
to buy car/house. This was one of the problems highlighted faced by
new recruits.
I think free education should exist till secondary education before it
converts to subsidized education. Money saved from the tertiary
education should be given to the secondary education sector.

Conclusion
The final thought
I am not suggesting we stop the fight. On the short
term it will bring benefits. However on the long run we
cannot keep doing this intermittently (2004, 2011, 2012
....). We need to do some structural changes to our
thinking and find solutions.

Talk2012

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