Professor Razeen Sally’s advice at the Advocata Lecture – Sri Lanka still needs to get the basics right before trying to leapfrog!

In speaking to a packed audience at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Professor Sally who is also the Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, Sri Lanka’s Premier think tank on Public Policy, said that until the basics are in order, there is little possibility of growing an economy to benefit from the latest advances in technology.

The lecture was titled “Capitalism in Asia and what it means for Sri Lanka.”

He explained the present day scenario of the various nations in Asia and Australasia, and which category of development they fell into and attempted to explain their various attributes and rationale for how they got to where they are at. I will not go into that which will shortly be covered in more detail in the Media in the next few days.

I will concentrate just on ONE aspect of the Basics that he mentioned. He did give credit to the present Governor of the Central Bank, in steadying the ship and balance, Monetary Policy, Exchange Rate and Balance of Payments, with some Fiscal Policy improvements taking place in the Treasury to complement.

However Labor productivity is the key to growth whichever way you look at it and if Sri Lanka just concentrated in improving the quality of its labor force, we can let all other factors just fall into place almost automatically.

What needs to be done to improve the quality of labor’s ability to grow the Economy, so that we achieve the expectations of the Citizens of Sri Lanka?

The points below are all mine, and repeated ad nauseam for 10 years in different sections in this blog, of over 1,000 entries, and if only policy makers read what I wrote 10 years ago and implemented just a few recommendations, we will not be where we are presently wondering, floating in space unable to reach firm ground.

It’s EDUCATION STUPID!

1                      I have blogged - our pre-school education hundred years ago was the best in the world, but now is asinine. I have recommended that special emphasis be placed in this area, so we empower our children, to retain the creativity they are born with throughout their primary and secondary education to make the right choices thereafter in their lives.

2                      In order to attain 1 above, we must retrain, and train pre-school teaching to a much higher level, even compensate at a higher rate than even University Lecturers, so that our MOST precious resource our Children get the right start in life.

3                      We then at primary school be completely trilingual, which is now proven as the best means to attain the most from our intelligence, making it easier to learn concepts like Mathematics and Logic, while being introduced to the extracurricular activity that currently obtains step motherly treatment at schools to develop interests in ability outside of the strict school syllabi.

4                      This will include, singing, dancing, musical instruments, and art, a well-rounded primary pupil who enjoys his first 5 years in school. This obviously means that the Grade 5 exam is done away with as being unnecessary, as there are easy to implement attitude tests to sort out different levels of intelligence if that is what is needed for directing some gifted children to perform at their best.

5                      Secondary School with a broad base of multi-disciplinary subjects, that with group participation in projects automatically points students to the subjects and specialties of their choosing. With the only public exam they will sit together being the equivalent of O levels. I will not go into the list, but I certainly DISAPPROVE of the Government attempt to bring it down from 8 to 6, when I would rather have at least 10 if not 12, but to a more commonsense understanding of subject matter, not facts to memorize.

6                      From age 16 (formal schooling then is 2 years pre-school and 11 years 5 primary and 6 secondary) the student chooses their calling. Into a vocational training school, further education in subjects if they wish to be University Educated Scientists, Engineers or Medical Professionals, the Social Sciences that include Business, Accountancy and Law, Hospitality and finally the Fine and Performing Arts, as in future this is an area (service sector) which will form part of civilized society, and income generating professions.

            I have not forgotten the three A's, Agriculture, Architecture and Advertising! they all need good people, interested in that field, who love the subject and we need to encourage that love equally.

7                      If we are able to leverage our unique Biodiversity Beauty to be valued worldwide, we will need 2Million workers in the Hospitality Trade and to get people interested in that field, true service standards, languages, map reading, trekking, history, archeology, zoology, sport recreation, guiding are all sub specialties of this, so students can be directed to their particular calling.

We must somehow send out to pasture the 10,000 staff in the Education Department who are the problem, warming their seats, drawing higher salaries than school principals, doing nothing, and preventing new ideas from being implemented, and spend that money directly in training the teachers to teach properly. That is most needed, without which this Human Resource cannot be developed to reach the standard necessary.

Just ask the chair warmers in the Education Department what has happened to the audio visual project of 10 years ago, to have distance learning in every school? Except for private and international schools that are in the forefront of education, does one Govt. school have a working distance learning center?

Why MUST we change our education system from that which has not worked to date? 

Surely will anyone dispute what I have laid out above? Is that not the best blue print? Only then will we have qualified, electricians, carpenters, masons, builders, and all manner of specialties in the travel industry, even the dancers and singers are part of the entertainment industry allied to the travel industry. All of the above will have the dignity of labor that is lacking today. We will concurrently have to, through the medium of TV change the mindset of the parents, that these professions are those of tomorrow that their children should pursue and not of yesterday, that has no future.

With the changing population age structure, especially in Sri Lanka, we need trained youth at 19 to join the workforce with the equivalent of a diploma. A degree if they are 21 and post graduate if they are 22. We JUST CANNOT AFFORD our graduates to enter the workforce at 27 as at present. They are too old, to join a productive labor force. The Prime Minister's 13 years of compulsory schooling at 5 is wrong, it should be at 3, as by 5 your brain is fully developed, and there is little you can do to change that.

Much job training and learning and possibly post graduate qualifications are obtained while in employment. This means is the only way we can ensure a productive society that all work from 19 to 70, as with advances of medicine and nutrition, we expect all humans to live to about 100, but the population to decline due to poor reproduction rates.

As can be seen from the above, it is service industries that have the future in employment growth, while agriculture and industry will have robotics and automation and innovation replace, but unlike the west we will be fortunate at not having a net loss in employment, as we would have a thriving hospitality industry to which we are geared taking the slack.

JUST THINK ABOUT THIS!!

Sri Lanka has the highest number of barbers per head of population. Our youth, and within them, male more than female use the salons MORE frequently. They are all private sector. YOU CANNOT GET A ROBOT TO REPLACE THE BARBER and with increasing vanity of males to preen for females, and not the other way around, this demand is still not adequately satiated. Each 14,000 villages in Sri Lanka has a barber salon, for men even though it does not have a motor bike repair shop. I live in a village so I know, that the men even go there for a shave. The average earnings of a Hairdresser, is Rs30,000 a month, with no traveling expense to work.

TO CONCLUDE

The key to success is a LABOR FORCE of a different in mindset, encouraging a work ethic from a young age, weaning children from parental overindulgence, with govt. jobs not even on their radar, to find a satisfying livelihood in a field of their choosing as the opportunities are endless, and they have to be shown what they are to gauge interest. If we succeed in this, the sky is the limit.