Originally appeared on The Morning.
By Dhananath Fernando
Last week I was invited for a panel discussion by one of Sri Lanka’s leading stationery manufacturers. This was for an initiative by them to support 100,000 families with children who are facing hardship due to the current economic crisis.
According to their data, 50% of Sri Lanka’s families are struggling to support their children’s education. High inflation was mentioned as one main reason for this hardship. Especially as more than 60% of what people earn have to be spent on basic food so what is left for education is shrinking. Unlike any other crisis, economic crises are the worst because it disrupts society. Inflation is not what the Central Bank says or what Prof.Steve Hanke’s updates as numbers.
It is people’s pain, sorrow, emotion and helplessness. 80 page exercise books have increased from Rs. 75 to Rs. 100, 120 page books from Rs. 120 to Rs. 225. If you recall Sri Lanka’s World Champion Toastmaster Dhananjaya Hettiarachchi’s winning speech, he says mothers have three types of tears - tears of joy, tears of sorrow and tears of shame. There cannot be any sorrow or shame for a mother other than the inability to educate their loving children. Education is pretty much the most poor parents' insurance policy to overcome poverty at their later stage in life, especially in our context.
In Lebanon the protein intake came down by half and 35% of Lebanon’s 2 million student population have dropped out of school due to the current economic crisis. As a result of this World Human Capital Index (2020) have projected that children born in Lebanon will only have 52% of productivity.
So since Sri Lanka is on the same route as Lebanon, it’s very unlikely that we would deviate far from Lebanon. The impact of an economic crisis is beyond fuel queues and LP gas lines. Impact can run longer for generations. As Prof.Ricardo Hausmann from the Harvard Kennedy School mentioned, “economic crisis is the same as a civil war.”
So Sri Lanka has to be prepared to overcome this productivity deficit by reskilling and upskilling people.
Sri Lanka keeps bragging about our skilled labor force and services exports of IT (Information Technology). This is an industry that is already affected, especially as many such skilled individuals are migrating to greener pastures. Unskilled labour is remaining simply because they can’t afford to leave or they are not skilled enough to leave. Some are unskilled not due to any of their faults but due to economic conditions and flaws in the education system.
Even though Sri Lanka moves somewhat forward towards economic reforms, after a few years we will experience a skilled labour shortage. When labour is in short supply investors don’t look at us and we become uncompetitive.
Existing businesses will be further impacted and recovery would be challenging
What can we do
Reskilling and upskilling our labour force is not just a function of formal education. It is mainly a function of working with co-skilled workers. For example, someone who works in a pizza restaurant has a higher chance of coming up with his or her own pizza recipe than someone just taking a degree in pizza. It's the same like someone who practices and bowls with Lasith Malinga will bowl better yorkers than someone who just watches Malinga bowling or someone just taking a theory course on bowling in cricket.
So we have to revamp our labour regulations allowing foreign workers to come and work here specially for skilled job categories. That is one way we can attract investors. Not only will it attract investors it would reskill and upskill our own people through on the job training. We have to allow labor markets to work where hiring and firing is easy.
If the government cannot spend money on education and if the government is too late to contain inflation then at least the government can change the archaic labour laws which have made Sri Lanka uncompetitive.
While the support and the initiatives by the private sector in uplifting education is welcome, there are quite a lot that can be done with just a stroke of a pen which would have a very high impact at the same time. We need to do charity and reforms both to really survive this education crisis which has been triggered as a result of the economic crisis.
The opinions expressed are the author’s own views. They may not necessarily reflect the views of the Advocata Institute or anyone affiliated with the institute.