Garvin Karunaratne.M.Ed, Manchester, M.Phil.Edinburgh, Ph.D. Michigan State University.
Introduction
In my own life as an automobile owner – all my earlier cars were
made in Great Britain- a Hillman Minx, a Humber Hawk, a Vauxhall Cresta,
a Morris Oxford. The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in the Sixties, That Humber
Hawk was a dependable, comfortable great car, comparable to any BMW of
today. Yet Britain lost its grip on its manufacturing base. Now Britain does
not make a single car. The Land Rover and a few other makes are all owned by
foreigners. British craftsmanship and workmanship has eroded to nothing.
Britain has become a nation of talkers. As a Social Worker in
Manchester, a Senior Community Worker in Edinburgh and as a Lecturer at
Westminster we did well in providing services, but the manufacturing economy
has grounded to a halt. German owned Supermarkets Ali and Lidl sell in the UK
many small manufactures made in Germany
at prices lower than Chinese products.
This indicates that there is room for Britain to make a comeback in
making items that are imported from China. Today building homes and apartments
is talked of as development. There is little talk of rebuilding our
manufacturing base to give a strong foundation to our economy.
In 1980, in Edinburgh,
I was the Senior Community Education Worker in Wester Hailes,
Edinburgh and the Warden of Clovenstone Community Center. We then had a
repertoire of youth and community development programmes. It is a crime ridden
no go area today whereas when I was there we used to travel all over the housing estate even at
midnight.
Then, I was also supervising a few lads under the Youth
Opportunity Programme(YOP) and the Special Temporary Employment
{Programme(STEP) of the Manpower Services Commission, the one and
only occasion when Britain tried to grapple with unemployment. The lads were to
be acclimatized into community and youth work. They acquitted themselves very
well, were very useful and I was struck with their ability. They were all
school leavers who failed to enter the portals of higher studies. They
were paid a allowance for two years and thereafter got lost. The only job they
found was to join the army and later I
was sad to come to know that some lads
had become cannon fodder in foreign lands.
The two premier programmes of the Manpower Services
Commission- the YOP and STEP actually took away two of the most formative years
of the life of a youth, leaving them nothing other than to hog the queues
of the Social Security System that gave them a meager living grant.
I suggested that instead, these youths should be guided to
follow a special intensive course in a vocation of their choice- where they
would be able to work towards making something that was imported. Many are the
Colleges of Education in Edinburgh that excel in providing
vocational and technical education which train youths for a year and
award them a certificate. Left on their own to find a job in a free market
economy with imports being the order of the day, they inevitably fail and have
to be satisfied with social security grants
and end scraping the barrel for life.
I wrote a Memorandum detailing how the youths under
the Manpower Service Programmes, should instead follow a few tailor made
intensive but short six months’ courses run by Colleges of Education in an area
of their choice where they would after a grounding in basic skills and use of
machinery identify saleable items that can be made, and make such
items as a part of their course. Then the Marketing Lecturers, the professional
in economics of the Colleges of Education who normally held courses in
marketing on a simulated basis with paper and pen, chalk and
talk, will take charge and get involved in actually marketing the product
made by the youths offering the chance to enable the youth to build up their
abilities in the art of marketing. The Vocational Training Units in the
Colleges of Education would continue to guide the entrepreneurs till their
enterprises become commercially viable.
My Report was submitted to the Director of Community
Education, the late Peter Williamson, who full of enthusiasm submitted it
for approval by the Education Committee of the Lothian Regional Council. It was
intensely debated, but the Labour Party stalwarts in power wanted to put off its implementation
till Labour ruled the country. That was the time when the Conservatives ruled
for long. I was given a commendation and that was all. This happened in
1981.
I was wasting my time in Edinburgh doing sweet nothing
worthwhile and quit to Bangladesh in
two years.
Later, in 1989, I was a Lecturer at Westminster Adult Education
Institute in London- my job was in community education- to assess the needs of
the community, draw up courses of study find suitable lecturers and implement
them. The Institute had an array of vocational courses – in painting, ceramics,
wood work etc and the trainees were trained and for practice purposes they made
many a something that were never saleable. I prepared a Report where I urged
that the trainees should be more
intensively trained and taught to make a saleable product . Then
the economics lecturers of the
Institute will guide them in the rigours of marketing and ultimately guide the
trainee to become an entrepreneur. My ideas were booted out and
that idea died a natural death.
Great Britain has in the meantime continued its way down hill.
It is no longer a manufacturing hub. Germany and France have taken over that
role.
In 2019, the citizens of Great Britain decided to get away
from being a member of the European Union. Having joined later, Britain
had to play a second fiddle to both France and Germany., The people
had got sick of Britain as a member of the EU because immigrants from the poor
countries of Europe have swarmed in droves, enjoying the social security
system the health services, with Britain failing to cope.
Great Britain voted to leave. Instead of acting on it in a straight
forward manner, calling it a day and going it alone as advised by
President Trump, Prime Minister Theresa May went licking the boots of EU
leaders to get privileges for Great Britain.. She came back empty
handed, ridiculed and ignored. Now on 23 rd July 2019, a new Prime Minister Mr
Boris Johnson was elected as the Prime Minister.
2. My experience and achievements
Let me detail two
programmes which I myself created and established successfully. This is important because
I am suggesting major ideas and those who read should know that I speak through
sheer experience as a battle hardened
professional someone who has established at least one employment creation
programme that has stood the test of time. It is also necessary that none can
say that I speak from hearsay- without facts. Here I was in sole charge in the
design and implementation and no one can doubt the success recorded.
One such programme is the Youth Self Employment Programme of
Bangladesh. I left my post in Community Education in Edinburgh to assume
duties as the Commonwealth Fund Advisor in Youth Development in Bangladesh. The
Ministry had an array of youth activities in social, and cultural areas
and also provided vocational training to 40,000 youths a year in an array of
some thirty vocations.
The Military took over the country in a bloodless coup d’etat in one night. The Military viewed
youth work activities with scorn, Within a day or two a meeting was held
to abolish or scale down youth activities with the Minister for Labour and
Manpower Mr Aminul Islam in the chair. He went through the programmes that were
being implemented and was very critical. Realizing me as the only outsider he
called for my designation and when told that I was the Commonwealth Fund
Advisor to the Ministry, ordered me to
state the contribution I could make for Bangladesh. I responded that with
40,000 youths being trained annually, with most of them remaining
unemployed at the end, we should have a self employment programme as an
integral part of vocational training to guide the trainees to become
entrepreneurs The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest administrator in
Bangladesh quoting the miserable failure of an attempt by the International
Labour Organization(ILO) to create a self employment programme a few
years earlier, said that I was suggesting something that could never be
achieved which will inevitably result in wasting funds. I contested and said
that though the ILO failed I could assure success. My heated arguments with the
Secretary to the Treasury and a few other Secretaries of key Ministries went on
for over two hours till the Hon Minister had enough of it and stopped all
of us arguing. He said that I had convinced him and immediately approved my
designing and establishing a self employment programme. The Secretary to
the Treasury stumped the proposal by
declaring that he will not provide any
funds to which I replied that I needed no new funds and will manage the additional
work within the approved youth training budget by finding savings within votes
and re-drafting the work remits of officers. This was approved.
I started training the
staff as well as the trainees the very next day. In the next 18 months, before
I completed my two year assignment I had trained 2000 youths and of my starter
youths easily seventy five percent were all successful entrepreneurs. I had
designed a programme that intensively guided the trained you to become
entrepreneurs.
I had trained the entire staff of youth workers in
economics and in the art of involving youths in self employment- building their
abilities and capacity while working to
become entrepreneurs. This Programme is today the premier programme of
employment creation the world has known and had guided two million youths to
become successful entrepreneurs by 2011. This Programme today guides 160,000
youths a year. It is a hard programme that does not provide funds for nothing
but intensively guided the youths. It provided training and youth workers- now
turned to be economic development specialists guided them on a daily
basis to success. Even today(2019) 36 years later, 95% of the work of the
Ministry of Youth Development lies in motivating and guiding the youths to
become self employed, the only such programme in the world.
This was what I had suggested to establish in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh’s failure was Bangladesh’s success. Great Britain could do with
a self employment programme on a national basis making what the country needs by
marshalling its youths. Unfortunately youth development has been neglected in
Great Britain and many cities have youth unemployment at 40%. . The Colleges of
Education have talented lecturers and Community Education officials can easily
provide expertise. Community development, the core method of building up the
abilities and capacities of people was a discipline taught at the University of
Manchester where I was a student and secured the Diploma with Distinction and
the Masters Degree, has stopped teaching that subject.
Establising a Crayon Factory. Another achievement of
mine, comes from Sri Lanka. It happened when the Ministry of Plan
Implementation refused to approve. import substitution type of programmes
for implementation in my District. As the Commissioner(called Government Agent
in Sri Lanka) of the District, I took over the leading school science lab in
the evenings for experimenting to find the art of making crayons. The
Leader was my Planning Officer who was a chemistry graduate. We did a myriad of
experiments for close upon three months every evening till midnight
working locked up in the science lab and found the art of making crayons.
With this success I established a Crayon Factory Cooperative
Industry at Morawaka in three weeks working day and night with my Planning
Officer along with a few other officers training youths in the art of making
crayons and in quality control. It was a handmade crayon like most Chinese
products today. This Coop Crayon Factory was a great success had expanded to have islandwide sales and
became the flagship project of the Divisional Development Councils Programme ,
the major success of the 1970-77 Government of Prime Minister Sirimavo.
3. Employment Creation Programmes submitted for consideration
(1) A Self Employment
Programme
Great Britain with its excellence and expertise in Universities
and Colleges of Education can easily take on the mantle to get the youths in
training to get down to production and to guide them till they are successful-
a replica of the Youth Self Employment
Programme of Bangladesh, the premier employment creation programme the world
has known. The basis is that the
lecturers who train the youth will also guide the youths if they are willing to venture out to make
things for sale. To my own knowledge the Lecturers at Colleges of Education in
Edinburgh as well as at Westminister do have the ability to guide their
students to become entrepreneurs. I am doubly certain of this fact.
The science laboratories in Colleges of Education are far more
equipped than the Science lab that I used to find the art of making
crayons. It follows that the Colleges of Education can easily find the
method of manufacturing imported items and get going with establishing
production cooperatives manned by youths working under the guidance of the
Lecturers.
This Programme will be following the Buy American pattern pf
President Trump. In my working life in the UK I have found communities rife with patriotism, specially
in Scotland. This programme can be charged with patriotism and I can assure
success.
I would urge that this Programme be accepted for immediate
implementation. I am certain of success and can build this to bring great
popularity to anyone that spearheads. It requires only one charismatic
utterance from our new Prime Minister
and this will get the Colleges of Education that trains youths in industry
cracking and with support from local councilors and politicians, I can assure
success within a year.
Britain has not had any attempt at national development since
the days of the Manpower Commission of the Fifties. It is time that a new initiative is made..
(2)Community Cooperatives
It is necessary to detail another essential factor
in the task of employment creation. . In Edinburgh, the most successful
manufacturing industry was Edinburgh Crystal, a cut glass crystal
manufacturer at Peniquik. Established as far back as 1867, it was a show
piece of Scottish workmanship. In 2006, Edinburgh Crystal was purchased lock
stock and barrel by Waterford Wedgewood, another Crystal Manufacturer from out
of Scotland who inherited its sales, but stopped the Edinburgh Factory. Its
trained workforce of some one hundred or more were cast on the heap of the unemployed.
On my numerous visits to Edinburgh Crystal I had seen the craftsmen at work.
They were really skilled workmen who had been at the task for decades. I
consider the closure of such a vibrant and successful manufacturing industry as
a disaster for Scotland.
On inquiries I found that Edinburgh Crystal was an industry that
was very hale and hearty. It was highly profitable and that was the very reason
why another multinational had its eyes on it. It was success for the intruder,
but a great loss for Scotland.
A similar loss happened in Canada. That was Blue
Mountain Pottery of Ontario an industry that began in 1953. Its animal
figurines, vases and jugs etc adorned the show cases at Harrods and Selfridges.
Though it was a profitable concern the owners were not satisfied with the
profit and closed it down in 2004. I happened to visit it at its closure and
spoke to the workers who were being laid out. They were a hundred or more
trained craftsmen destined to the scrap heap of unemployment though their
products have today become well priced collectors items.. This was a great loss
for Canada as Blue Mountain Pottery had finalized a rare process of fineness in
pottery which could have taken on like the world famous Lladro of
Spain.
The closure of Edinburgh Crystal and Blue Mountain Pottery, both
extremely successful enterprises also brings to light the ills of the private
sector. In neoliberal economics which UK follows. It has to be understood that
the motto of the Private Sector is to make a profit and the development of the
country comes second For systematic
development of a lasting nature the Private Sector has to be guided by the
State. It is the State that is interested in development. The State has to
harness the Private Sector for development.
The answer lies in community cooperatives where the workers as
well as communities tie up to establish and run manufacturing industries. Here
with success the venture stays in the place of origin providing work for the
people and the enterprise can be developed with resources from the community.
It will not fall a prey to venture capitalists that may acquire, move it or
close it down. The UK has a developed cooperative network which is vibrant in
areas like Scotland. This cooperative network can be harnessed for the cause of
creating employment under this Programme.
In any attempt to bring about employment creation, it is also
necessary to plan for the emergence of cooperatives where the community too
will be involved as much as the youth of that community will be the workers.
Then the industry that is created will have a community base where members of
that community will take the lead to work with the workers to ensure success in
manufacture and sales. This is found necessary because even worker cooperatives
with success on their hands can move their ventures from their area to areas of affluence leaving
the area where they emerged. In this task a major role has to be played
by Community Education, regional and city councils as well as by Colleges
of Education.
In WesterHailes, Edinburgh, if by any chance my suggestions of
1980 had been approved to make entrepreneurs out of the youths in training,
able experienced community members were always willing to offer a hand to make
them a success. Then once an industry is established it will be the guarded
treasure of the community.
An important aspect re cooperatives is that the profits go to
the cooperative and the cooperative workers. The funds in the cooperative
are for future development of the cooperative enterprise. The current model of
enterprise development in the capitalist world is the public company, where the
capital is provided by nonworking investors who hold shares and the
payment they expect is in the dividends. In the cooperative model profit making
is not the aim. Instead the aim is the development of the country, the creation
of employment and bringing about production causing national development.
(3) Harnessing the Private Sector for Development
In development the private sector has to be harnessed for the
achievement of development goals. As much as there are private entrepreneurs
who may be interested, they are also worried about a possible failure with
major losses. This has to be combated by the State identifying areas of
activity with a potential for
investment, developing local resources or to combat imports.
In this connection a
further lesson can be quoted from Sri Lanka. In the Fifties and Sixties
the Green Revolution was taking place apace in Sri Lanka and the country
did not have the capacity to mill the paddy to rice. The Department for
Development of Agricultural Marketing that handled rice milling imported a few
rice mills and installed them at vantage places in the producing areas. Next
the Department drafted plans for the establishment of small scale rice mills
and called for applications from investors. The machinery that had to be
imported was detailed and the Structures and buildings that had to be built
like floor space for the machinery and drying floors were detailed. The private
sector entrepreneurs were offered an allocation of foreign exchange to import
the machinery. At this time foreign exchange allocations were required for
imports. An investor could come forward and was guided in the investment.
I happened to be in charge of the Southern Province and many millers who came
forward had to abide by the rules in installation. I supervised the rice mills
being installed. The rice miller was given an allocation of paddy on a weekly
basis for milling for which he got paid. This was a great success and overnight
we built up a capacity to mill the paddy.
This details the strategy for the State to play a major
role in development, harnessing the investors in the country. This
leadership is essential as otherwise individual investors will not find the
backing to forge ahead.
(4) Identifying Engines of Growth for Areas of Britain
It is also necessary that the different areas in Great Britain
do decide on the engines of growth, depending on available
resources. To start with Great Britain can be divided into England, Wales
and Scotland and a group of experts covering industry, community work,
engineering and education should undertake to arrive at the engines of growth
for the area. For instance in Scotland, Wales and certain areas in England,
tourism is an engine of growth. Accomodation has to be made available at
reasonable rates. The equal of Premier Inn and Travelodge have to be opened in
areas where there are glorious views. There has to be parking places
where tourists can park their vehicles and enjoy the scenery. Further
there have to be facilities provided to motorists to rent recreation vehicles,
motor caravans, motor homes to tour the area. The services of institutions like
the Caravan Club with their caravan parks etc can be enlisted. In
every area a group comprising a few councilors, community members, a civil engineer, a
representative of the Caravan Club a representative of the College of Education
in the area could draw up what infrastructure has to be provided to encourage
tourism. Similar details have to be worked out on an area basis. Perhaps
the City and Regional Councils can take on this leadership for this
task of development.
It is my experience that tourists cannot find access to coastal areas of pristine beauty. Many areas
have scenic beauty. These have to be identified and necessary facilities
provided. Instead of British tourists
flocking overseas for holidays, they can easily be accommodated in Britain
itself.
4. Conclusion
Creating entrepreneurs out of the cadres that are being trained
at Colleges of Education all over the UK, and an attempt to establish Community
cooperatives out of the trained with community expertise also playing a role,
enlisting Colleges of Education and even Universities along with County and
City Councils to forge ahead on employment creation tasks can be the nucleus of a long lasting and useful
programme that will give great credence to any personage that establishes it.
Such an attempt will bring about production, will reduce imports
and equip Great Britain to face the problems that it will have to face
from a departure from the EU
Such an attempt at employment creation will also put Great
Britain on a path to become the manufacturing hub of the world, which it
actually was in the last century.
It is my sincere contention that instead of pleading and
begging from the Garniers and Merkels, an attempt should be made to
revive the British economy and things will then move in the right direction.
May this Paper be debated and appropriately developed on to
enable the creation of a sustainable economy. Let me hope that initiatives will
commence in a few areas like Edinburgh, Manchester or London or where
there will be interested officers in Colleges of Education, Universities, in Education Departments,
Regional and City Councils and interested politicians.
It is time for a new initiative
for Great Britain to be great again.
Garvin Karunaratne.
M.Ed,
Manchester, M.Phil.Edinburgh, Ph.D. Michigan State University.
1 st August 2019
