Saturday, April 5, 2014

Following on from the Gamani Corea Legacy

My last blog entry was on the Seminar yesterday which I attended and following on from a comment in that blog entry, it was apparent what is wrong with our education in Sri Lanka that is merely reflective of the inability to grasp concepts at our universities.

Students who by and large study courses such as Economics in the English language, but many are still not fluent in the language. This then restricts them to reading required texts from which to answer their questions whilst their command and lack of fluency restricts them in appreciating the nuances of concepts such as those discussed at the seminar.

It is interesting to note for example that in the 1970s the discussion was about rich and poor countries and the exploitation of the poor by the rich. That debate has gradually transformed into one of unequal distribution of wealth in both rich and poor countries and poverty alleviation theories have replaced them as topics for discussion and implementation.

With the higher growth rates of the BRIC nations, when compared with the OECD, the focus in world development and growth has shifted to the newly developing nations and the arising inequalities in those countries that are the need of the hour.

Further as emphasized by the various panels, the huge leap in technology have meant that the whole world is wired with the same technology, with the telecommunications in smaller nations being superior to the larger ones, due to the ease with which to cover the nation with broadband, giving them an edge in being a technology hub, to compete in providing both BPO services and cutting edge software development services to clients worldwide.

Changing demographic patterns and Ecological concerns have brought conservation of rapidly declining resources into the forefront. The use of renewable energy and the economics of the development of renewable resources has turned on its head, the whole area of the diversification of resources to energy savings schemes from export or other terms of trade related economic theories.


The transition and emphasis of new areas of growth is better understood with reference to the Gamini Corea legacy of the 70s and 80s of international programs and how they dovetail into matters of state in 2014, where an unheard of aspect, such as remittances from workers in the Middle East, have transformed economies.            

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

there are many points here. what is the larger point you are trying to make?

my view on remittances is that they contribute to income inequality on a microeconomic level (such as at the village or town level) thereby creating further gaps in wealth between the migrant class (ie the migrants and their relatives) and the local class (the rural poor with no migrant relatives forced to find a way to pay for land, housing, food, etc on local salary which is nearly impossible!). the CM of the Northern Province is the only one that seems to articulated this about his constituents with relatives in the Tamil Diaspora which send money to them thereby making them lazy and unproductive in Sri Lanka. the same can be said about the relatives of migrants, in addition to those people inflating prices making it difficult for those without migrant relatives to make ends meet!!!

Ratmale,Minneriya,Sri Lanka said...

Appreciate your comment, and see my new blog entry that I wrote arising from the comment.

After I had written that I just saw this article that amused me!

Chinamen are buying property in the UK and now the British have been priced out of property in their own country!

A great topic for another blog entry!


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597354/Chinese-fuel-UK-housing-shortage-Far-East-speculators-price-Britons-market-country.html

Ratmale,Minneriya,Sri Lanka said...

Article in today's FT on this event.


http://www.ft.lk/2014/04/07/gamani-coreas-noble-mission-unfinished-then-but-may-be-irrelevant-now/