Education and economic success: How Covid-19 could have saved us

Originally appeared on The Morning

By Dhananath Fernando

It’s been over a year since the Covid-19 pandemic hit Sri Lanka. The pandemic entered our nation at a time when all Sri Lankans, regardless of their party politics, had very high hopes about a change in the political economic system – a “system change”. While Covid has posed a real challenge for any system change, it could have been interpreted as a blessing if we were to shift our gears from “needing a system change” to working on “implementing a system change”. In my mind, education reforms are probably the best place to start.

We tried to restrict Covid to being a healthcare crisis without letting it spill over to become an economic crisis, but to no avail. Now there is another crisis brewing in the corner, which hasn’t been given much attention – the “education crisis”, which has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic and its economic aftermath.

Let’s understand the crisis first.

Even before Covid, it was not a secret that our education system was not supporting our economic aspirations. Starting from preschool to tertiary and vocational education, the education reforms have been mere promises; they have been limited to the pages of election manifestos, without any real work happening on the ground. This education crisis is far more complicated than ever before. There are significant flaws in the education structure as well as in the content taught.

Sri Lanka’s inability to produce complicated products and services is a good case study to evaluate our education system. What we have been taught over the years does not satisfy the areas of knowledge that are in demand. People who have had the talent and acquired the skills that meet global demand have been offered citizenship and very attractive opportunities all over the world, and Sri Lanka has not even thought of attracting them back.

The more serious problem is that we have not been taught the things that are important for the present and future. From my experiences, we haven’t been provided with the opportunity to really learn by ourselves, even if we wanted to. Most content and many curriculums are outdated and so we have been made incompetent and unable to meet global competition. From 2000- 2015, Sri Lanka has introduced only seven HS codes to our export basket. Our competitor Vietnam has introduced 48 and Thailand has introduced 70 HS codes to its export basket. Therefore, one of the main contributors to our ailing economy is education.

As a result, even after 70 years of independence, we are finding it difficult to compete, and our inability to compete and understand the market dimensions have pushed us into a corner. In order to counter our own lack of competitiveness, we are building walls of protectionism against a far more competitive world, which has further isolated us as a nation in a fast accelerating world.

It is not only about our knowledge of technical subjects; human values and qualities such as empathy, equality, caring, taking responsibility, self-discipline, and many other soft skills have not been developed to levels at which they should have been. The way our senior educated officials and some trade union leaders, who have had a science and technology-focused tertiary education, are attempting to manage a global-scale pandemic, is a classic case study to understanding the gaps in our education system.

With all these flaws we have continued on the same journey without making improvements. With the pandemic, our preschools, universities, and most of the tertiary education institutes have been closed or operating virtually for more than a year; some have adopted online teaching methods but some of the students who do not have internet or device access have been completely left out. Some students and families have been completely left out due to being unable to afford the internet (even though Sri Lanka is one country with comparatively low data charges), and for practical reasons such as a few kids requiring to study online at the same time. Additionally, learning how to learn online is the first step for a productive online learning experience, rather than just sharing the same notes online and delivering the same content in front of a camera.

Education reforms are complicated, but it is one area that can bring us significant economic benefits in the future – if done right, and in line with global education standards. To do this, reforms sacrifices in terms of political capital will have to be made.

Implementing such reforms will bring in newer opportunities.

First, the tertiary and university education system could have expanded through a new online platform. One of the main complaints has been the capacity of our universities. An online mechanism with proper online examinations could significantly increase the numbers getting enrolled at our universities. A parallel curriculum change could have been done with industry consultations, as the post-Covid economy in the world has opened more opportunities for hundreds of new subject streams. Even world-reputed universities such as Harvard and MIT are now offering new courses with the same credibility online at a very reasonable price.

Secondly, the teachers are at home, and this time, they should have been better utilised for teacher training and curriculum changes to uplift education standards.

To overcome the current crisis, ideally a special curriculum could have been made for primary and secondary schools with special focus on the critical content from the existing curriculum. That would have helped students focus on the important subjects and themes and catch up for time they already lost due to Covid. The same special curriculum should be the gateway for updating our education system and curriculum.

While we work on long-term curriculum changes and online education methods, teachers and the school administrations should be identified as frontline workers and vaccination drives should prioritise them so that schools can be reopened faster.

There have been attempts to utilise the current television network for education purposes, but it seems to have not been done in an organised manner. In the third wave, we are back to square one in facing our educational challenges and it is obvious that we have not learnt anything from the first and second waves of the pandemic.

We have to remember that reviving the economy from an education crisis is far more difficult than recovering from a healthcare crisis. If our people’s brains don’t work at the right speed and in the right direction, there is no way that we can drive the economic engine in the right direction.

That may be why former late South African President Nelson Madela eloquently said:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

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.

Work Together or Die Alone

Originally appeared on The Morning

By Dhananath Fernando

How the pandemic highlighted the greatest benefit of globalisation – co-operation

The provision of Covid-19 vaccines has become a serious issue, not only in Sri Lanka, but in all parts of the world, but governments could have faced this issue better if they had understood the economics behind it – especially because it is the science of managing scarce resources by making the right choices in resource allocation.

Understanding this is much more important today because Covid-19 vaccines have become a limited and scarce resource globally. Sri Lankans who got the first jab of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is now in a stage of confusion, as they have lost access to the second jab. This is mostly due to the unfortunate Covid uptick in India, which is globally the main manufacturer of vaccines.

Let’s rewind to about a year ago. This was when Sri Lanka managed the first wave of Covid-19, with a strict lockdown, active contact tracing, and effective quarantine mechanism. The number of infections and fatality cases in the USA, Italy, and some other European countries were very high during the same period. But things have changed. 

Economically, this was the time Sri Lanka embraced self-sufficiency. Many argued that globalisation and global convergence have come to a standstill, and that we have to go for self-sufficiency, and even for a homemade recipe for Covid-19 pandemic management. 

After one year, the entire world – and even the Sri Lankan authorities – has unanimously agreed that the best solution to manage the pandemic is vaccination. At one point, some policymakers even questioned and argued, saying: “Why are we making our people guinea pigs for vaccination testing of the products developed by other countries?” However in just one year, it was proven that global cooperation is needed for us to prosper; and the main vaccines currently in use in Sri Lanka, namely Oxford AstraZeneca, the Russian-developed Sputnik V and Chinese-developed Sinopharm are the result of global cooperation. 

The vaccines Sri Lanka received as a result of Covax are part of a global co-operation programme, where many countries and international donors contributed to developing the vaccines at a rapid pace. The US invested about $ 4 billion in Covax, as did the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Coax programme is a global mechanism, where countries and donors donate money to the programme, similar to the Paris agreement, for the vaccinations of middle and low-income countries. 

However, it is true that as usual, the countries with deep pockets received an additional advantage of securing more doses than middle-income countries. It is a classic case of “higher the investment, higher the return”. In this case, the higher return is in the number of doses for countries that invested billions of dollars for vaccine development and manufacturing. 

First world countries including Canada, the USA, Japan, and the UK have made multiple bilateral deals with many pharmaceutical companies, and have managed to secure doses more than they require for the entire population. Those countries made the risk of investing in multiple companies in case of the failure of certain vaccines during the development process. As a result, some countries like Canada have now reserved enough vaccines to vaccinate 8.7 times the doses required by their population. The UK and USA have reserved vaccination doses for about 7.7 and 4.0 times the sizes of their population. 

Globally, this has created a debate on the waiver of patent rights for vaccines. Some economists and policymakers have requested a waiving-off of these globally so that  the developing world will be able to produce its own vaccines – thereby increasing the supply of vaccines and bringing the pandemic to an end. 

However, intellectual property (IP) rights is a big component of pharma manufacturing. Companies and scientists embraced taking such a significant risk because of the large returns they could have made. Requesting a waive-off on these IP rights may affect the incentive of developing similar high-demand pharma products in the long run.

In this context, the question is what Sri Lanka can do to accelerate the vaccination programme. 

First, we have to realise we are already late to catch the train. The cost of the delay is a serious economic storm to an already ailing economy. Ordering vaccines and rolling out vaccinations could have started about six to seven months before. However, what we can do now is to open up the vaccine rollout to the private sector. With the global agent agreements, private sector companies may be able to secure some doses, so those individuals who could afford a vaccine may be able to get it by paying a higher price. 

Thereby, the most vulnerable sectors who can’t afford a vaccine could have access to the government programme. Big corporations and exporters in Sri Lanka most likely will pay the vaccinations for their employees. This is the same as PCR testing at the initial stage. The private sector was not allowed to conduct PCR testing. As a result, even someone who could afford a PCR test had to stretch out the resources of the Government, and as usual, it is the most influential people who got a preference in the government system. 

Most healthcare providers currently conduct PCR tests in collaboration with the private sector, which has helped immensely for active contact tracing and quarantining. The same actually happened for the vaccines as well. With the absence of a proper priority list, many who could afford to purchase a vaccine, and who could have survived without a vaccine for some time, got preference over someone who was deeply in need. 

We also have to admit that global co-operation in the modern world is a normal thing, and depending on each other is not a weakness, but a strength.

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.