Sri Lanka’s higher education enrolment slump a rare phenomenon: World Bank Education expert

World Bank Lead EducationSpecialist for Sri Lanka and Maldives Dr. Harsha Aturpane

By Devin Jayasundera In stark contrast to Sri Lanka’s universally-acclaimed high scores in access to education and school enrolment rate, the number of students pursuing higher education is at an abysmally low level in relation to comparable middle income countries, said an education expert at the recently-concluded Human Capital Summit last week. The local education system commonly experiences a gradual decline of enrolment as student’s progress to each tier in their schooling career. Primary education (Grade 1 to 5) which is approximately at 100% in enrolment drops to 85% at junior secondary education (Grade 6 to 11) and at the senior secondary education (Grade 12 to 13) it is at 67% for males and 72% for females.

The decline is most severe at the higher education level which is 12% for males and 17% for females. “This is a very sharp drop. It is very rare to see at the end of secondary education and higher education,” said World Bank Lead Education Specialist for Sri Lanka and Maldives Dr. Harsha Aturpane. “We also have very low higher education enrolment compared to other middle income countries which average higher education enrolment is 27%.” Countries like India, Malaysia and Thailand accounts to 24%, 39% and 51% in gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education for both sexes whilst Sri Lanka only accounts to 15%.

He attributes this phenomenon to Sri Lanka’s stringent policy framework which has been unfavourable to the private sector participation in higher education. At different stages of their schooling careers, many students fallout from the formal educational system. “The big challenge is students leave at various points before the age of 18. Approximately at the age of 13 or 14 boys and at the age of 16 girls are leaving the education system.” Dr. Aturpane proposes a strong and attractive vocational training alternative for such students than the traditional emphasis on achieving the general education certificates. In his address Dr. Aturpane informed that educational achievement at primary level specifically in languages and mathematics indicate a satisfactory status but at the junior secondary education students show much weaker performance in the same subjects. With regard to English education, he said: “Some of the research suggests that out of the 10,400 schools roughly about 9,400 of them can’t really teach English to students – not at the level the private sector demands when someone comes for the job interview.” One of the key evaluating criteria in identifying a high performing school is the quality of socio-emotional skills (soft skills) imparted to students. It is a common critique of the private sector of the lack of soft skills among students produced by the local educational system. In fact the problem is uniquely Sri Lankan as other middle income countries don’t regard the level of soft skills as a major constraint in the quality and participation of their labour force.

“The private sector has not been able to pin point exactly what these qualities are. That’s a problem that the education system has to respond,” said Dr. Aturpane. Secondly he says schools are often facing a dilemma in balancing the trade-off between promoting cognitive learning outcomes (hard skills) and socio-economic skills. Dr. Aturpane is a proponent of devolving more power for schools. “We are seeing maximising school based management by devolving many powers as possible to the level of schools. Partial or limited school based management is implemented in Sri Lanka and has been successful at improving attendance rates and promoting learning outcomes according to studies conducted. There is a strong case to build on those successes and promote school based management to the maximum extent possible.”

He argued that schools should be able to hire and remove teachers independently. “Currently school teachers come in to a centralised service. There are major problems of teacher employment especially in poor areas. In a school based management, schools could recruit teachers directly to schools and hold teachers accountable for their performance. This would be a major reform,” he said. However, such an aggressive action requires a Constitutional amendment. “The current Constitution says teachers should be recruited through a centralised service.

As a result of the discussions with the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister, when the proposed Constitutional changes come, the Minister is willing to make this one of the changes,” noted Dr. Aturpane, optimistically. Pix by Lasantha Kumara