{"id":104271,"date":"2020-07-05T16:25:47","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T23:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=104271"},"modified":"2020-07-05T16:25:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T23:25:47","slug":"why-have-our-universities-failed-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/07\/05\/why-have-our-universities-failed-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Why have our Universities failed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

I would like our authorities to give deep thought to the salient\npoints I have raised in an earlier paper of mine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our country is deeply in debt today by blindingly following the\nIMF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is sad that our dons in econ, the real people that matter on\nthis subject are silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would kindly request our professors of economics to rethink\nstrategies and consider a move to commence studies on the Structural Adjustment\nProgramme of the IMF, following which our country became indebted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not a subject in any university and the first university\nto commence studies will gain immense prestige.  It will also help all\nThird World countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why have our Universities\nFailed?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a product of both Universities- Colombo and Peradeniya,\nentering Colombo in 1950 and ending at Peradeniya in 1954. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the initial period, called the Golden Age, our University did\nshine and it held personages like Dr Malalasekera and Dr Ediriweera Sarathchandra,\nwho I think were in a super class, inspiring all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then our Universities have been falling back.  The World Ranking of Peradeniya is 2044 while\nColombo ranks 2191. Even by the QS(QuacquarelliSymonnds) ranking of Asian\nUniversities Peradeniya ranks at 242 while Colombo ranks 156. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem today is that Peradeniya as well as our other\nUniversities have concentrated more on teaching, whereas the emphasis should\nhave been wider- a contribution to the country and also to the world. To my\nmind the many ills of our country today- its foreign debt that has gradually\nbuilt up, the poverty that engulfs the people etc. deserve attention by our\nUniversity dons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a discussion with my contemporary the late Professor\nA.V.Suraweera, I was told that a major difference between then and now is that\nthe vibrant relationship that we students then had with the Faculty members are\nnot existent now because most professors decamp the campus after their\nlectures. Then the Faculty happened to be a part of us throughout. I learnt my\necon ideas from Dr GVS de Silva though I was not a student in econ.  The Faculty members inspired us. We were\nbonded ; they would always give us a lift if they passed us in their cars and\nthey would even invite us for a morning drink of meera(sweet toddy), evening\ntea or dinner. In the Kandy town samasamaja poster pasting campaign, done\ndiscreetly at midnight, which was a weekly event, we worked using the cars of\nFaculty members.. There were many informal sessions like learning Bengali songs\nat Dr Sarkar\u2019s residence, Nadagam songs at Dr Sarathchandra\u2019s, where Faculty\nand students  participated informally.\nThere were faculty members who could have commanded hundreds of us impromptu.\nThat was a great relationship that inspired us and was an essential part of\ncampus life which appears missing today. At Michigan State University too,\nwhere I was a doctoral student, we were close associates of professors. They\nwent out of their way to look after our well being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deal with another aspect, it so happens that Sri Lanka is\nperhaps the only Third World country that has free tertiary education. It is\nincumbent therefore  that university\neducation should make a contribution to the development of Sri Lanka. Instead,\nour universities have kept away from development. I quote specific instances:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Matara I was the Government Agent in 1971 and we were\nconcentrating on creating employment for our youth. We had to attend to the\nimport substitution type of industry and I had a raw graduate in chemistry from\nthe University of Colombo as my Planning Officer. That was his first\nappointment. I directed him to find the art of making crayons. In an earlier\nposting of mine as Deputy Director of \nSmall Industries I had to approve small industries and in that I had\nseen many items being made. I knew the ingredients, the process but little of\nthe proportions. I told him what I knew and he, \naided by  Science teachers conducted\na myriad experiments closeted in the science lab at Rahula College, the most\nequipped science lab in the District, after school hours. In about a month we\ngot somewhere but the product was far from satisfactory. Vetus Fernando, the\nPlanning Officer sought my approval to go to his professors at the Chemistry\nDepartment of the University of Colombo from which he had graduated a year\nearlier. I was elated and approved the request and he went off\nenthusiastically. Vetus approached all the lecturers, spent three days going\nbehind them beseeching advice but was turned away. He was told that they were\ntoo busy in lecturing,  marking answer\nscripts and tutorials. Vetus came back with his tale of woe, a broken down man.\nI was not going to take it lying down. The refusal made us more determined than\never. We doubled on endless experiments and in around a month we found the\nformulae to make crayons. We perfected it. A Crayon Factory was established at\nMorawaka and sales were opened by Minister Subasinghe, the Minister of\nIndustries. Minister Illangaratne when he saw the crayons we made insisted on\nmy establishing a factory at Kolonnawa. Coop Crayon   had islandwide sales and became the flagship\nindustry of the DDC Programme. In the USA any State University would have\nwaited for such an opportunity. Any ailing industry would be closely studied- credits\ngiven to a few students who will be assigned that task and professors will\nensure success. That is a great role of the State Universities in the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is  important to note\nthat the success of the American economy of today is ascribed to the services\nprovided by the Land Grant State Universities\u2013 the State universities that took\ncharge of development in addition to teaching. University Teaching was related\nto achievement in actual practice, a task in which  our Universities failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our country has since the late Seventies moved from a self\nsufficient, self reliant economy that had no debts,  to a country that following the IMF has today\npiled up a foreign debt of some $ 60 billion. In the Fifties the entire Gal Oya\nDevelopment Scheme was built with the funds that Sri Lanka held. Not a cent was\nborrowed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka became a debt ridden country when from  1978 she followed the IMF teachings to be\nliberal in spending foreign exchange, allow imports freely and when the\nexpenses exceed demand, was advised to borrow and continue spending. This was\nthe Structural Adjustment Programme of the IMF which was the conditionality to\nwhich every country that wanted Aid had to agree to. The IMF has plodded on for\nfour decades, while none of the erudite dons in our Universities dared to\ncritique and prove the ridiculous nature of the IMF teachings. Instead, they\nplayed poodle to the IMF.   In 1996 I\naddressed the dons in the Economics Department at Peradeniya in a lecture on\nwhat the IMF was doing to Sri Lanka by imposing its Structural Adjustment\nProgramme. That was to be the beginning of a Visiting Lectureship for me. I\ncame back to Sri Lanka in 1995 and hoped to get engaged in something\nworthwhile. None of them confronted my views. That lecture also ended my Visiting\nLectureship perhaps because the dons felt that I was indoctrinating them with\nanti IMF and World Bank ideas. I rewrote the lecture and got it published in\n1977: Microenterprise Development: A Strategy for Poverty Alleviation and\nEmployment Creation in the Third World: The Way Out of the World Bank and IMF\nStranglehold. (Sarasavi). That is \nthe first book contesting the IMF teachings. Professor Jeffery Sachs\nspoke of the detrimental effects of the IMF only in 2005 in his book The End\nof Poverty. That was  a passing\nreference stating that African countries were actually better off  before the inroads of the IMF and the World\nBank. And later still the cat came out of the bag with John Perkins\u2019 Confessions\nof an Economic Hitman where he confessed to have designed Aid Packages\nwhere the projects not only failed but also somehow shunted back the Aid sent\nto the Donor Countries.  That type of\nprogramme was a planned method  of the IMF\nand such institutions  to make  our countries indebted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dons not only at Peradeniya but worldwide have kept away from\ncritiquing the Milton Friedman economics that underlie the IMF\u2019s policies. The\nonly  notable exception is Professor\nWaldon Bellow of the University of Philippines. .Professors Stiglitz and\nJeffery Sachs have been critical of the policies of the IMF but they only make\ncriticisms but never get into finding an alternative path. They were themselves\nin the pay of those Institutions and failed to fathom the detrimental effects\nthat their policies would bring to the Third World countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can understand why the dons of Developed Country Universities\nhave desisted from critiquing the IMF\u2019s policies because it is the IMF policies\nin implementation that have seen droves of students flocking to their\nUniversities using the liberal use of foreign exchange that is borrowed. In\nthat process it is the fees that these students pay that help many universities\nto survive. Some top ranking universities in the UK have even reduced the entry\ncriteria to grab students. The students also take away foreign exchange for\ntheir upkeep. The IMF policies ensure that the Aid given to our countries and\nthe dollars we get on loans somehow move \nback to the Developed Countries(the donors) leaving the country that\nborrowed in debt. This is sad story narrated in mybook: How the IMF\nSabotaged Third World Development (Kindle\/Godages: 2017)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time that one of our leading Universities  takes on this mantle of delivering the Third\nWorld Countries from the clutches of the IMF and that itself will bring great\nworldwide prestige to any of our Universities. Our Universities at Colombo or\nPeradeniya, our best equipped and ideally staffed Universities will be thrust\nto the stature of the Ivy League if only they will dare to take on this  challenge. That task could be achieved within\na year or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do hope that my Alma Mater the Universities-Peradeniya or\nColombo will take on this subject, develop a course structure and conduct\nresearch on this subject. They can be the first in the world if they dare. That\nwill also help our Motherland and other Third World countries to find a New\nParadigm for Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B.A Peradeniya 1954, M.A. Peradeniya 1958<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.Ed. Manchester, M.Phil. Edinburgh & Ph.D. Michigan State\nUniversity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30 th January 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne I would like our authorities to give deep thought to the salient points I have raised in an earlier paper of mine.  Our country is deeply in debt today by blindingly following the IMF It is sad that our dons in econ, the real people that matter on this subject are silent. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}