Myopia in Arts Stream Education in State Universities in Sri Lanka

By Samanthi Senaratne and Sunil Dahanayake

The Auditor-General (AG)’s Department of Sri Lanka issued an audit report titled “Propensity to Tend Education under the Arts Stream and the Unemployment of Arts Graduates” on 18 November, 2020. Subsequently, a series of articles by a group of academics, known as ‘Kuppi Talk,’ from Faculties of Arts of the University of Colombo, University of Peradeniya, University of Jaffna and Open University of Sri Lanka appeared in The Island newspaper. These academics have highlighted that they are working in an environment in which arts education is under attack and there is no adequate funding from the government to improve the arts education in universities as well as in schools. They have also mentioned that the role of the arts education has been narrowly focused on employability, which is negatively impacting on the role of university education. In general, these articles discuss the meaning of arts education, funding restrictions, gender issues, neo-liberalism, feminism related aspects and suggest that there should be an extensive discussion on this matter. Further, they mention that the professionals,like auditors, have no capacity to analyse the role of arts education in the schools and the universities in Sri Lanka. They argue that their role is to produce liberal arts graduates, who are compatible with the society’s norms and values.

We found that this group of academics feel that the AG’s report has unfairly targeted the arts education in Sri Lanka. However, our view is that it is important to look into the positive side of this audit report and see how the arts education in Sri Lankan schools and universities can be improved. Hence, we provide a different perspective and suggestions to the issues noted above to reframe our school and university education systems to suit the changing social, political and economic environment. We argue that the main factors, which are contributing to the unemployment of arts graduates are, the lack of English language skills and the inflexible subject enrolment system in state universities in Sri Lanka.

We write this article based on how we have achieved our educational and professional goals because of the skills in the English language and the subject stream we opted for. The two authors have obtained their undergraduate education from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka and serve as academics, in Australia. The second author, Sunil Dahanayake, an academic in Accounting and a Chartered Accountant, suffered a lot in the early 1980s, after completing a Business Administration degree in Sinhala medium at the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJ). He attended Kapuduwa Kanishta Vidyalaya and Thihagoda Maha Vidyalaya in Matara. He did not offer English as a subject at the GCE O/L and A/L examinations in Sri Lanka. The first author, Samanthi Senaratne, has a somewhat different background. She completed her first degree in Accounting in the English medium, at the USJ in 1996. She attended Visakha Vidyalaya in Colombo and passed English Language and Literature at the GCE. A/L examination as the fourth subject in the commerce stream.

Importance of AG’s report

The AG’s audit report recognises the importance of arts education in a country and makes recommendations to reduce the imbalance between the education and the employment needs. Accordingly, this report discusses two main issues associated with arts education in Sri Lanka: (a) why more school students select arts stream subjects for the GCE. A/L examination and (b) why the university graduates in the Arts stream face difficulties in finding employment opportunities.

We do not concentrate on the technical jargon in the audit report as such, but we have to discuss the category of audit, rationale for this audit and its findings. The AG carries out two main categories of audits as Financial Audits and Performance Audits (also known as Value for Money (VFM) audits or Operational Audits). This audit report on Arts Education in Sri Lanka is a performance audit report, whose basic objective is to evaluate the government programmes to determine whether a particular programme, project or an organisation has carried out its activities with effectiveness, efficiency and economy. The performance audits are similar to qualitative programme evaluations but do not have specific measurements as in a financial audit, and the subjects audited can be very broad. There is ample evidence to indicate that the AG has done substantial work in terms of audit methods and procedures to collect the evidence to articulate the conclusions and recommendations of this report. The recommendations in this audit report are useful to the higher education authorities such as the Ministry of Education, University Grants Commission (UGC), State Universities in Sri Lanka and National Institute of Education (NIE) to improve the national educational policies and programs.

The major findings in this audit report are that the poor infrastructure and staff facilities in rural areas are pushing students to select arts stream subjects instead of the subjects in other streams such as biological science, mathematics, commerce and technology. The audit report indicates that arts and fine arts graduates have an unemployment rate of 54.4% and 62.8% respectively as per the UGC survey data on unemployment for the period from 2016-2017. The AG recommends that all the regional schools in Sri Lanka should be provided with infrastructure facilities and qualified teaching staff to rectify these deficiencies.

In relation to arts education in universities, the AG recommends that the degree programmes should be reviewed and revised to suit the needs of the employers and society, and equipped with English communication, Information Technology (IT) and other soft skills to reduce the level of unemployment of arts graduates. One of the main highlights of this audit report is that the majority of the graduates have indicated that the English language competency is the most vital element in finding an employment opportunity. Accordingly, we discuss the current status of English education in schools and universities in the following sections as it is considered as one of the main inhibitors in pursuing higher studies and securing employment opportunities for arts stream students and graduates.

Present status of English education

English is taught in schools in Sri Lanka from Grade 1 and students offer it at the GCE O/L and A/L examinations. This audit report highlights the number of candidates who sat and passed the GCE O/L and A/L examinations along with their pass rates in Sri Lanka from 2015 to 2018. The average pass rate of English at G.C.E. O/L is 50%, which indicates that 50% of the students fail English subject every year. We also noted that an extremely low number of students are taking English as a subject at A/L Examination when compared with the Sinhala and Tamil languages as indicated below. We have used the G.C.E. A/L examination performance reports produced by the Department of Examinations to verify the accuracy and compare the number of candidates sitting and passing English as a subject along with Sinhala and Tamil languages as shown in the table.

These numbers speak for themselves about the English, Sinhala and Tamil language education at the G.C.E. A/L in schools in Sri Lanka. We noted that a fairly lower number of students select English as a subject at G.C.E. A/L, which is approximately 2% of the candidates, sit for A/L in Arts stream. Further, it can be seen that 40-50% of these students who take English as a subject at A/L, fail this subject. Apparently, there are two reasons for the low number of candidates who sit for the English subject at G.C.E. A/L, which we indicate as follows:

1. Students do not want to take the risk of not being able to enter a state university when considering the possibility of obtaining good grades for the G.C.E. A/L English subject.

2. The lack of qualified teachers to teach the G.C.E. A/L English subject particularly in rural areas.

The numbers given above as to the students who opt for English as a subject at G.C.E. A/L and the AG’s audit report are an eye opener for the government policy makers, teacher training colleges and academics of the English Departments of state universities in Sri Lanka. These numbers show that the number of students who gain the admission to the universities to pursue higher education in English language is very low and as a result, a limited number of graduates will specialise in English and graduate every year from universities. This will result in a scarcity of qualified people in the society, who could provide quality education in English language teaching and learning at both school and university levels.

We also did a random check on Google, searching ‘English classes in Sri Lanka’ and ‘Spoken English classes in Sri Lanka’ which displayed 39,300,000 and 1,640,000 results respectively. These numbers show the high demand for English education in Sri Lanka. The spoken English classes are a good business to deceive the innocent folks who are trying to improve English communication skills. We have personally come across many such incidents.

The above mentioned facts and figures show that there are many interrelated issues when considering the demand to learn English and the availability of qualified people to serve this need in the country. Hence, it is our opinion that the academics of English departments who have expressed concerns as to the findings of the AG’s report, need to focus on this fact. They should question themselves to understand whether they do the justice to the government funding that is currently being allocated to their departments. As per the AG’s report, the largest amount of government funds had been incurred during 2016 to 2018 on the Arts stream, which amounts to 22-23% of the total amount allocated to all faculties of state universities. When analysing the government funding allocation per student, per annum on different subject streams, that number reflects a fairly high allocation for arts faculties. Accordingly, the funding allocation per student on the selected subject stream for 2018 was: Medicine – Rs. 645,372; Science – Rs. 379,835; Arts – Rs. 175,550; Commerce and Management – Rs. 137,111. These numbers indicate that the claim of funding restrictions for arts faculties cannot be justified.

English Language Skills of University Students and Graduates

English is an essential skill in Sri Lanka in finding jobs and for the knowledge enhancement of undergraduates. Further, in Sri Lanka, English language skills are a symbol of social status and also a weapon to discriminate and mentally harass university graduates in interviews and various other forums. That is why English is often referred to as “Kaduwa” (kʌdʊwə) in the university community as narrated by Rohana R. Wasala in his article titled ‘Professor Ashley Halpe, the great humanitarian I knew’ in The Island newspaper on the19th of June 2021. This article points out that this term is used by the students “mostly who come from the non-English speaking (or exclusively swabhasha speaking) rural peasant and generally subaltern sections of the society with negligible English, recognized the alien language (English) for what it had been in the past: a symbol of colonial power and privilege and an instrument of oppression and exploitation; a perception that they expressed by calling it ‘kaduwa’ (sword)”. In a nutshell, our university students have a good mastery of the subject knowledge but they find it difficult to search jobs on-line, to write an application or curriculum vitae, to address the selection criteria and to express their knowledge and skills at the interviews, due to the lack of competency in English language skills.

This situation changes with the improvement in English language skills through a formal learning and teaching process. Thus, university students and graduates tend to search for knowledge through books and other media, if they are fluent in English. When the English knowledge of the students is low, they tend to become classroom note readers, idle in the universities and prone to engage in the activities of destructive political organisations.

The second author, Sunil could not communicate in English at the basic level when he graduated in 1980. Then he got an opportunity to serve as an articled clerk in Accounting at one of the leading international accounting firms in Colombo. Sunil was humiliated by his fellow trainees and office workers as well as client staff due to the lack of English communication skills. This gave impetus for Sunil to learn English at the British Council from 1983 to 1985 and to complete the Cambridge University English Language Examinations, despite the financial hardships. Subsequently, Sunil became a chartered accountant and completed postgraduate education in leading universities in USA and Australia, and worked in Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Australia, USA and United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an auditor and academic. All these academic and professional achievements became a reality because he improved his English language competency.

We also provide an institutional success story in management education in Sri Lanka from the Department of Accounting of USJ, where Samanthi read for her undergraduate degree. The management graduates of state universities in Sri Lanka were treated the same as the graduates of arts faculties until the 1990s.

The corporate sector was reluctant to recruit the university graduates in Commerce, Business Administration and Management because of several reasons. Among them a critical consideration was their lack of competency in English language. A group of academics at the USJ realised this issue and commenced a degree program in Accounting at the newly formed Department of Accounting of USJ in 1992 with English as the medium of instruction. The students were given an extensive training in English language. Every week, 10 hours were dedicated for English language learning of the first year students and 8 hours per week for the second year students of this degree program. Therefore, the students got the opportunity to improve their English language skills despite the fact that all students have studied up to A/L in either Sinhala or Tamil medium. The students admitted to this degree programme are very much heterogeneous in terms of English language competence representing all 25 districts of Sri Lanka.

Further, the degree programme integrated IT into accounting courses from the inception and introduced a two-year compulsory internship programme as an integral component of the degree programme, under which the students undergo training in the third and fourth years exposing themselves to the corporate world. These changes made a huge difference in the lives of students who passed out with the accounting degree as they were able to secure employment opportunities even before they completed the degree programme. These graduates are employed in both Sri Lanka and overseas holding positions such as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of corporate entities and partners and directors in accounting firms. The employers, representing the corporate sector entities and accounting firms, now come to the university to recruit these students as trainees in their firms under the internship programme. This degree programme has acted as a catalyst for change of other degree programs of all management faculties of the USJ, University of Colombo and University of Kelaniya. (To be continued)