charindra chandrasena 00:02 Hi Dana. Hi Jahi. Hi Anushka. Hi Speaker 1 00:05 Anushka. Yes. Hi Jahid. charindra chandrasena 00:07 Hi hi. New face today. Speaker 1 00:09 Yeah. charindra chandrasena 00:09 And good to see you. Speaker 1 00:12 Nice to see you too. charindra chandrasena 00:13 And we have we have asked Riyadh to take a rest today. We gave Riyadh a break. Had you? There's there's really only one big topic in the country right now, and that that is on education. But then that topic has led to several other topics. You know, there are subtopics Dhananath Fernando 00:33 as usual in Sri Lankan Sri Lankan style. charindra chandrasena 00:37 Exactly. So there's there's you know sort of people are discussing whether there is sexism involved. People are discussing the role of women in society. People are discussing LGBTQ I rights, and all of that stems from this large issue of education. So, so without going into those subtopics, since we should address the main topic first, the education reforms process, Nana, and and you can tell me if you agree with me. I think the process has been, I mean, could have been better from the on the part of the government, and it seems like the lack of preparation or the lack of attention to detail has actually backfired, and and it feels like it has given fuel to a lot of the accusations that are coming up now, both from the opposition and and segments of society. But if we go back to the the root of this matter, it is about this education reforms, which are which are not being called reforms. In fact, elements of the government are calling it an education transformation, and in fact, in the official document, it is called a transformation. It's not called a reform. It's called transformative something, decreasing transformation, basically. What are your initial thoughts about these reforms? And I wanted to particularly focus on the economic angle because there is a subject called economics Dhananath Fernando 02:25 included for the first time. So Jari, basically, I'll tell you the the background story. When I was when I was in the U.S. for my Eisenhower Fellowship, I got a random chance to attend a lecture at Harvard, which is an MSc lecture, which was about education, and the professor was an education education specialist called Professor Fernando Ramus. No connection between the Fernando that I have and Professor Fernando to begin with. But he brought in like I mean it was just one lecture, but he taught so much, and then he got towards the latter part of his lecture. The director of Singapore Education Reforms Committee, his name was I really cannot recall the exact institution, was his name was Professor Pakti. So he basically brought out how Singapore has done it. Like I'm just keeping our education thing aside for the time being, but this is I thought this makes sense. He said in Singapore there are three streams. First is the the teaching part, like the teachers, their salary scales and their career progression is not connected to the school administration. Basically, a teacher will not get promoted as a principal. Your teacher is like grade one, grade two because they are good at teaching and they are encouraged to be teach better and better. And they need not to worry about what is going to happen to my promotion, whether I need to shift to principal like for better pay. It's I mean unlimited. They can not unlimited, but they have a clear career progression on teaching. Second, you have the school administration, that is like the principals who are looking at the administration side, and they have a separate thing, and they don't they need not to jump for the teaching stream, or like the they need not to come from the teaching stream. The third one is the setting of the syllabus, and that's a completely separate stream, and that has a. There's, if you look at it, there's economics in all three because you haven't, you have given clearly given the incentives for each stream to prosper, and that's complementing with each other. And when you set up the syllabus, I think they have like a, they have people, not who know about the subject, but who think about the future, and think about like what should be incorporated. It's like you know, not someone knows about economics should set the curriculum for economics. Someone who should know about the world should think about like what should be the things that we should have should be taught to our future generation to you know to support the labour market. Factors on and so forth to set the syllabus. So he said these are completely three different streams, and we are doing it. So what I'm seeing from the educational reforms in Sri Lanka, we are always entangled with like, okay, what needs to be you know put to the syllabus, whether it's entrepreneurship, whether it's you know sex education or whatever that thing. But you are, I feel we are still missing that structure. So as a result, the teachers wanted to get become principals, and you are losing a teacher and a principal both by promoting sometimes a teacher to a principal. So that's the that's the structure that I would love to see. And even this Pakti, he said a nice thing like at his comments, he joined through Zoom. He said, you know, education is like this. is This is a critical thing that we are doing. We should not, under any circumstances, take it like you know, you know, we should underestimate it because it's like planting a tree by knowing that you should never enjoy the shade of it, because you're planting something that definitely it's not going to impact you, but you know that it's going to impact someone else, which is not connected to you. So it's a serious job. So that's what he said. Now in the Sri Ramkantin, I think that structure is missing to begin with. I saw that entrepreneurship and like financial literacy has been incorporated, which is I think good. Dhananath Fernando 06:16 But my point is like a topic like entrepreneurship. I'm not. sure how you can teach it at a classroom because generally those who go beyond what is being taught at the classroom are the ones who are becoming entrepreneurs. But what you can teach is the basics of how the system works. It's not merely only about financial literacy and economics. It's about physics. It's about chemistry. It's about you know civic engagement. The point you're charindra chandrasena 06:44 making is that to teach an entrepreneur how to become an entrepreneur is itself a contradiction in the sense that I mean if you teach it through a through a formal education system, because an entrepreneur is someone who breaks convention and who is a maverick, who does what is sometimes, you know, what conventional wisdom tells you not to do. You know, taking that risk, taking that leap, leaving another job without having a job planned, or I mean, doing something Speaker 1 07:21 outside the syllabus. Exactly, outside the syllabus. So, charindra chandrasena 07:24 if you teach it in a formal setting, how how does that really work? Yeah. Dhananath Fernando 07:31 No, absolutely. Now look at the like few examples that we know, like you know the rocket, like earlier, like with the gravitational forces, the norm was that how can you do it? But even if you look at the story of Elon Musk, like what he said was, if you want to make the SpaceX workable, he said it has to be a renewable, I mean, reusable rocket. That's that's how we made it economically scalable, and even I I watched some of his interviews. Like what he said was when he started SpaceX, it's amazing because he said I knew that the engineers that I had could not deliver what I want. At the same time, I knew there are engineers who could deliver what I want, but they would never ever consider to join SpaceX because we are like you know a small company, so I had no option. The only option he had was he had to learn himself on how to do it, and basically what we see SpaceX is pretty much what he saw and what he designed. So this is a typical entrepreneurial thing that you would do, so absolutely. So it's something. It's like asking a government officer to teach about entrepreneurship, because you cannot be teaching entrepreneurship becoming like a government officer. Yeah, yeah. But I think Kanishka Anuke has done some other interesting stuff on the admission side. Admission side, but he's also comes from studied in Australia, he may have also point of view. Anushka, sorry, I was going like a. No, that's okay. But but on this charindra chandrasena 09:07 on this first, yeah. So the grade one admissions. Yeah, I want to ask you about that, but I want to go in detail. Dhananath Fernando 09:13 Okay. charindra chandrasena 09:13 But let's finish this point because I want to also talk about economics with you. Speaker 1 09:18 Right. charindra chandrasena 09:18 And you can add into this as well, in terms of economics, so there are two schools of thought. One is that it is essential to teach economics because people have such such little understanding about it, and the other school of thought is that it doesn't need to be taught as a subject that it can be done as maybe assignments or something that is outside the syllabus as a fixed thing. Where do you stand? Dhananath Fernando 09:52 I think it has to be taught to an extent in the syllabus. Of course, there's nothing wrong with like coming. You know, have that supportive. Also to do it in assignments, so on and so forth. But I think that's important. But the economics, not the entrepreneurship, because how the demand and supply works. I mean, how the monetary policy works, how inflation. Those are basic things, and anybody should know. It's like you know mathematics. I mean, you cannot live in today's world like if you don't know how to like how to do like the you know subtraction or division or multiplication like you know you should know how to calculate one plus one. So likewise in economics, if you really do not know like what inflation, then it's very difficult to create a future workforce, a population who can create wealth because they don't know how they would lose wealth. charindra chandrasena 10:39 Yeah. Dhananath Fernando 10:39 So that is, I think, important. But it doesn't mean that you can only teach all economics only in a classroom. You definitely have to have that, you know, interaction, engagement, really testing your what you learn at the classroom. No, because for the charindra chandrasena 10:54 longest time, I thought we have to teach two things which are not being taught, which is economics and law. Dhananath Fernando 11:00 Right. Yeah. charindra chandrasena 11:00 Right. Absolutely. For me, it is essential that anybody in sixth grade onwards gets an idea about the law because there's such a lot of, I mean, such a lack of understanding, such ignorance about basic law. Yeah. I mean, forget about everything, even traffic law. Speaker 1 11:19 Yeah. Yeah. charindra chandrasena 11:19 People don't know, and therefore the cops can pretty much tell you anything, and then you, out of fear, and especially if you're below a certain, you know, social economic socio-economic class, you will, you know, out of fear, abide and and and go along with it, and then economics, because the reason that politicians can come in and promise to give what they don't have themselves to give is because how the economic machine works is lost on so many people, so many parts of the population. So I think economics, because for me, the only thing I agree with you on entrepreneurship, and my main problem with entrepreneurship is what are you going to teach? Also, what is the syllabus going to include? Because economics should cover most of that. Because for an entrepreneur, it's important to know how again economics works because you are not going to get too far without that knowledge. Now, if we go back to the fundamentals, to so this is we are talking grade one to grade 13. Speaker 1 12:37 Okay, charindra chandrasena 12:38 right. So let's go back to the beginning. Dhananath Fernando 12:41 Yes. What is the problem that you see with Sri Lanka's admissions system to grade one? Yeah. So, Cherry, I think it's important that you understand that this is also part of the economic reforms because people, as we discuss about, only think about the curriculum, but there's a massive part on the admissions and all that, which really doesn't make sense. I think that's where Anushka's thing coming in, because when you look at the economic, sorry, the education reforms, you have to look at that holistic picture, not like okay, whether I'm going to insert like you know economics or entrepreneurship or sex education to it, but you have to look at the entire structure if you are reforming, because otherwise having the best curriculum in in place doesn't gonna work. Sorry, Arish. Yeah, no worries. Always took your time. That's okay. Speaker 1 13:26 So yeah, like Dana said, it's it's the curriculum is just one side to it. And if you're talking about education as a whole, we have to improve everything. It's just like a car. We can't create the engine without the body and the chassis, right? The engine's just the waste. So, starting from the basics, which is the grade one, the current admission system is outdated. It's heavily paper-based, and the biggest risk and the biggest issue that is there is the fact that it's decentralised, meaning students or parents, on behalf of the student of their children, have to apply the two schools technically, and so if you want to go to one school, you will have to go get the application, get your documents ready, and then apply to that school. So there is no main governing body that's looking after everything. It's just the school that handles the application. So when it's wide open like this, there's an opportunity for backdoor deals. I mean, there's there's nothing to hide about that. There's been numerous cases about principals accepting bribes, officials accepting bribes, intermediaries, and even politicians in influencing principals to accept students charindra chandrasena 14:41 and faking addresses, faking Speaker 1 14:42 addresses, document fraud. These are completely normal things in Sri Lanka. And one of the biggest issues that have happened is because of the opportunity for the unethical things to happen. People fight to go. Into elite schools, even though they are not capable of, because this happens the public education system in many countries, even in Australia, Singapore, they happen district-based. So, according to your district, you are supposed to go to the school that is in your district, basically. So that's how education, public education, is. So, the the opening of these unethical practices have led to people migrating from rural areas and coming to schools which are more elite, which are more resource packed, and doing carrying out these unethical practices like bribery, political interference, and document fraud, especially because it was done by Transparency International Sri Lanka report. 60% of the migrations from rural areas to Colombo was because of these schools, because of the fact that they wanted to get the address in Kalamu to get to the good schools, so this decentralised system creates a classic example of an of a market failure, because we have regional disparities, we have rising inequalities, because we have just a few elite schools that everyone's fighting for, and no one wants to stay in rural areas. So we have stress on urban infrastructure, urban housing, urban transport, while the rural areas are just just being rural for the rest of their time. charindra chandrasena 16:33 What is the what is the solution that you are proposing to this? Yeah, Speaker 1 16:37 so I've been working on this for almost a year, and this practice is not something new. So this was refined mainly, and it's more famous by Alvin Roth. So he he initiated this in the U.S. So this system is to create a centralised body where all applications are handled by the Ministry of Education. So parents don't submit the application of their children to the school. So all the applications are centralised and it's handled by the Ministry of Education. And there's a digital portal that happens. So for this to happen, firstly we need to have the documents, all these land deeds, electricity bills, and all the documents that are needed have to be. They have there has to be like a online, you know, verification portal. Yeah, they charindra chandrasena 17:31 can be uploaded and uploaded and verified automatically. So Dhananath Fernando 17:33 you, what you mean is like the the land titling and everything has to be cleared. Speaker 1 17:37 Yes, Dhananath Fernando 17:38 because then only you can authenticate or verify that the same person lives in the same house or something, right? Exactly. Speaker 1 17:43 And Dana, I was also pushing onto the fact that you know the government has to have a database, online database. So when you submit your deed, you know it can be verified whether this is authentic or not because the government has the official authentic one. Because then fake ones will be rejected, right? Yeah, the charindra chandrasena 18:02 government meaning you mean the ministry has to the ministry. Yeah, the ministry has Speaker 1 18:06 to have. Yeah, the the they have to have a portal of all the documents that are required, because the biggest thing that happens is the document fraud. That's the biggest thing that happens. So when you have a database that have that has the authentic deed or the documents, then it can be verified online. So charindra chandrasena 18:25 at the moment, yeah, with this analogue process, yes, how does it? How is it verified? Do is it through, you know, cross checking? Yeah, different. Speaker 1 18:37 Yeah. So basically, I mean, basically, what they do is the application and the documents are handed over to the school. So it's there are officials that are in school that go through these documents and they'll double check. But it's not as you know accurate because you can you know replicate it perfectly in a way. Yeah, but charindra chandrasena 18:59 also there is no cross checking. There's no Speaker 1 19:00 there's no cross checking. Yeah, charindra chandrasena 19:01 because the ministry is not involved. Speaker 1 19:03 Yes, yes, you don't have. Dhananath Fernando 19:04 Yeah, yeah. So and also, yeah, if you recall, it's quite hilarious. Also, now all those associations generally they come. I don't know about other schools in Kalambo schools. When you see the address, actually they come at night to check whether they actually live in the same house, so as a result, I know a lot of people who basically only and interestingly they come also at night to check whether actually they live there. In fact, I know a lot of families that actually they come to. I mean, they have a relative, let's say, Kalamo Seven, so they put their dress and actually during night they come and sleep there to make sure that if and if during that period if someone comes and cross checks whether they you know live there it's a it's a hilarious quite a sad hilarious and tragic yeah tragic situation and that happens and this process starts way before the kid was born Speaker 1 19:59 yeah. Because your Dhananath Fernando 20:00 identity card, everything basically starts way before, and the kid pretty much, I mean, has to lie at the beginning because he he or she has to say like he's been living in this place rather than actually the real house. So in your authentication and cross checking, that is of course it's a physical thing that they are doing, and sometimes I think there are spot checks like what I mentioned. Yes, yeah, charindra chandrasena 20:24 but that's a very informal process. That's a very informal and random process. Absolutely, Speaker 1 20:28 exactly. So I was working on this paper with Sudara Kesvan, and he was mentioning the fact that his grandma lives in Colombo near a popular school, and his grandmother doesn't know. But there has been around seven cases where they've used his grandma's address just to apply to that school, and they are not even aware. And it has come to that point where you can use someone else's house, the deed, the ownership as your own to get into school, and you not knowing. That's the worst. That's Dhananath Fernando 20:58 that's why I think like at Advocata we speak about this land digitization multiple times, like and every time when you say land digitization, people are looking at on a very. I mean, not everybody, but people only think, okay, land digitization. Why you know whether some private entity grabs the land or something, but there's deeper meaning into it. You know, it connects with authentication of like you know your address, your school admissions, so many things, and even like traffic fines too. Everything that can be done when you get it right, I think it's there for an to an extent on the vehicle registrations because in vehicle still there are a lot of loopholes, but still like you know the transfer process takes place and all that. So likewise, it has to happen for land component. It's connected to ultimately the education that we speak about. Speaker 1 21:47 Because the main thing is the fact that you know you get the highest number because there's no issue with the criteria of the points allocation because according to a certain set of points is how you're selected to a school. So the biggest issue is the fact that the distance is the one that gives almost half of the points. So what people try to do is that is the basically that is what they try to you know fake because you get the most points from that. charindra chandrasena 22:17 Okay, so I'm a parent. Say I'm a parent. Right. You're the ministry official. Okay. charindra chandrasena 22:25 I come and give you the application of my child. Okay. charindra chandrasena 22:31 And the document. So what happens from that point of Speaker 1 22:34 service? It's it's like a five-step procedure. Okay. So we call in all applications, and once they are submitted. We close applications. The best thing that we have targeted to do is to make sure that every step step is transparent, so parents know each step and they know where they're at. So what will happen is once the meaning is it charindra chandrasena 22:55 a tracked process? It will be tracked. Yes, they'll be Speaker 1 22:58 tracked on each step and they'll be informed. Right, right, and so it'll be all done by online, and it'll be AI. So they'll go through the document, they'll verify it, and they'll cross-check the deed copies, land copies, electricity bills, everything. And if there's an issue, then obviously parent will be contacted. Maybe we'll have each application from a unique identified number, maybe the birth certificate number or something. Yeah, and through that, it'll go through the same old mechanism where they the the system, this deferred acceptance algorithm system, will allocate points and match the student based on the requirement of the school because schools have their cutoff mark, right? So based on the number of points a student scores according to the given criteria, they will be allocated to the school. So, charindra chandrasena 23:51 yeah, but which school? Like how how how is the school picked? How how are they matched to the school? Yeah, so they have to give their Speaker 1 23:57 preference either way. Right, that's normal. Yeah, so that the preference thing is currently there. Speaker 2 24:02 Okay. Speaker 1 24:03 The thing is, when you go and give your preference to the principal, so let's say you have to give top three. Okay, your top three. So if you give your top three, let's say your top three, if you give to the principal your preference and you have the top three, but you're rejected from the first. Then your application is sent to the second. Parents are scared that the second one accepted it because you put it as second. In this case, because it's with the principal, it goes to the school. So then, if the second reject, it goes to the third, and the third might reject because when it's not with the officials, you know, principals or the people at school might take it personal because why did you, you know, put us as third? So we were your third option. So this happens online. Dhananath Fernando 24:51 Right. So it's the Speaker 1 24:52 Ministry of Education that's handling it. So your first preference will be tried. If you're not matched to that, then it'll go. To the second, so according to this Transparency International report, over 15% of the children don't get their top three preferences in the current over 15% of the charindra chandrasena 25:11 students in a year Speaker 1 25:12 don't don't charindra chandrasena 25:13 get their first or third or first or second or third preference. Third preference Speaker 1 25:16 over 15% and only 38% of the parents believe that this system is fair, so there's 62% that know this is not fair, and the survey that was carried out, 60% of the people, the surveyors respondents said that they know that there's backdoor deals happening, and they have accepted the fact that they have paid principals, officials, intermediaries to get things done. So Dhananath Fernando 25:39 I think it's important that we clarify what Anushka said on the preferences. So when you apply for the school, you can always provide preference one, preference two, preference three. So that's what he said. I think that that the that some people are giving multiple applications, changing the preferences because you give application to one particular school-that's your first preference. But they-they are probably all slots are gone, so they will be passed to the second preference. But then the principal is upset. Okay, why am I going to get some? Nobody wants to be second chance. Exactly. So then, why? Why should I do that? So then, it's you know, and the parents are worried that they will not get a school to begin with. So when you match it through an algorithm, so you it calculates like what's the first preference, second preference, third preference, and it does the matching thing. Anushka, can I ask you like what's the economics behind it? You sense I mean you mentioned something like it's a commodity market. It is it's not like some stability something. Can you behind the economics? The thing is, Speaker 1 26:38 this market works to stability, and if we have stability in this market, because it's a matching market, it's called a matching market. So a matching is like Dhananath Fernando 26:48 what is yeah. So a matching market Speaker 1 26:49 is a market where price, the supply and demand is not determined through price. So a normal commodity market, the the price is judged by its supply and demand, but this has nothing to do with price because the student wants to go to the best school, the school wants the best student, so there's no price that is involved. So do you Dhananath Fernando 27:07 mean like Uber and PickMe is also matching markets? Speaker 1 27:09 But Uber and PickMe are it depends on the time. Yeah, it depends on the distance. Sometimes charindra chandrasena 27:15 there's a higher peak time market. Yeah, higher price. Higher price Speaker 1 27:20 if there's traffic, if it's office rush, so because these charindra chandrasena 27:23 are government schools, yes, the price is constant. Speaker 1 27:26 Yeah, there's no price. Exactly, which is zero is so it's called a matching market. We try to match the best school with the best student. Right. So that is how it works. Yeah. So charindra chandrasena 27:35 this is either the the matrimonial market. Yes. So if if Speaker 1 27:38 if there was price, then we don't need to get involved. It's easy. Demand and supply will do its thing. But the thing is, there's no price involved, and that's why we need to make sure that there's stability. And stability is what creates trust because people don't trust the school system. They know that there's document fraud. And like Dana was mentioning, because you're scared to show your show a school that you you know put them as second in their preference. What parents do is they give multiple applications to different schools, putting that each school as number one. So there are chances where the same student gets selected by multiple schools, and other students lose out because now one student has three seats. charindra chandrasena 28:18 Okay, let's let's also go in terms of a scenario, just so that maybe the audience can also understand it better. So there is, say, the best school in Sri Lanka, the second best school in Sri Lanka, the third best school in Sri Lanka. We are not going to name which ones because they may be. We don't want to have bad comments. Yeah, exactly. We don't want to go into that debate. So then, there's a student who has excelled, not excelled. Actually, wait. What is the criteria? It's distance. What is Speaker 1 28:53 so the top three? I remember it's distance, and then whether your parents were alumni, right? Okay, and then whether you have siblings in the school, charindra chandrasena 29:02 right. Speaker 1 29:03 So those were. So charindra chandrasena 29:04 technically, the the second and the third ones are connected. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Basically. Whether you have family. Yeah. Whether you had or have family in the school. First one is distance. Yes. So it's nothing to do. Huh? Nepal. Exactly. Nepot. But basically, it has nothing to do with anything of the student. No, right? Okay. So then, take take okay. So say all those three are satisfied. Speaker 1 29:33 Okay. charindra chandrasena 29:33 And let's say for example, this is Kalambo Saban. Speaker 1 29:37 Yes. charindra chandrasena 29:38 School. Speaker 1 29:39 Okay. charindra chandrasena 29:39 Okay. People can make up their minds which one it is, and then what happens from that point on? Speaker 1 29:45 So yeah. So if you so and also remember that charindra chandrasena 29:48 school is highly in demand. Speaker 1 29:50 Okay. Yes. Okay. Yeah. charindra chandrasena 29:51 So tell me what happens. I Speaker 1 29:53 mean, if you have the points to go to this school, you'll basically be selected. So you will. They'll take the highest. So let's say we have 50 students. Out of those students, let's say the school has only 10 seats. So the students that have the highest, the 10 students that have the highest points will be selected to that school, and then depending on their preference, if that makes sense. charindra chandrasena 30:18 Yeah, I know. Yeah. So highest points means so say both the say three students have houses in Kalamazoo. Okay, it is about which one is the closest to the school. Yes, yes, that gets higher. Yes, yes, it's about Speaker 1 30:31 the closest. And then charindra chandrasena 30:32 and then the student that has three siblings in the school will get more points. More points than the one that has two siblings. Yes, it it Speaker 1 30:39 gets more detail even though the sibling is in school, they look at the performance of the sibling. They look at whether he has done extracurricular activities, whether he's a prefect and whatnot. Right. So that's very complicated. Yeah, it does play Speaker 3 30:50 a Speaker 1 30:51 role. But that is the norm in every country. In Singapore, in even Australia, in states like Victoria, New South Wales, it's the norm. And even Alvin Roth has not gone against that criteria. Yeah, because charindra chandrasena 31:03 it's merit based. It's merit based. You come from good stock, and therefore true. You have to get a chance. It sounds a bit strange, but yeah, yeah, that is the logic. Yeah, the Speaker 1 31:12 problem is that it's not the fact that you know the the reason is we have to understand why there is a fight for the Colombo schools. I I've also mentioned as much as we need to fix the admission system, we also need to equally develop all schools in the country because we have this mentality of elite schools, Colombo schools. Yeah, charindra chandrasena 31:36 but but Anushka is it is not just a mentality, right? It is the reality. Speaker 1 31:42 Reality that charindra chandrasena 31:43 these Colombo schools from, you know, the the saints and certain other schools just have better facilities. Speaker 1 31:55 Yes, yes. charindra chandrasena 31:56 It's not a mentality. Speaker 1 31:57 No, that is true. So charindra chandrasena 31:58 then, isn't from thinking from the parent side, wouldn't any parent want their child to go to the privileged, well-resourced, prestigious schools? I mean, Speaker 1 32:13 if I was a student, I would, regardless of my performance, I would want to go to the best school. I mean, parents would want to put their children to the best school. Likewise, a student, regardless of how their performance is, they would want to invest. charindra chandrasena 32:24 Most most students at that stage can't decide, so the parents decide for themselves. But the parents would want that. Yeah. So then, is this system going to actually work in a country where there's a lack of? I mean, it's it's not it's not equal. Yeah. So it's far from equal. Speaker 1 32:41 Like exactly. So like like I was saying, as much as we improve the admission process, we also need to push into develop a push into having more resources in these schools that are not developed. And I feel like if we fix the admission, then the pressure on these rural schools, on school underdeveloped schools will be higher, and that will push the government to develop these schools. So that will also work hand in hand. charindra chandrasena 33:08 Yeah, because actually the president was speaking about this, and he was saying, and and and this was in relation to the education reforms middle of last year. He was saying that there are so many schools with like 10 students, not classes. 10 students, the entire school, 10 to 50 students. Yeah, charindra chandrasena 33:28 so many. Speaker 1 33:29 Yeah. charindra chandrasena 33:30 Now I don't know why that is a school, right? Exactly. And the the ratio of teachers to students is all wonky. Speaker 1 33:38 Yeah. charindra chandrasena 33:39 So there's the system itself is so messed up that I think this system could really your system could really work if the overall system, the physical system is fixed. Right now, so so in the previous government or the one before that, there was an initiative called Langamma Passal, right? The idea there was also this that you you you eliminate the need for parents to fake their dresses and do you know underhand deals because you don't mind going to the neighbourhood school. Yeah, Speaker 1 34:17 your local school is you know is good. Yeah, right. charindra chandrasena 34:20 Yes, of course, there are tiers in any country, right? Yeah. But there are minimum requirements that every school has. Dhananath Fernando 34:29 True. charindra chandrasena 34:29 Yeah. Dana, on that economically, how feasible? And then also this president was also talking about it that you know we have to consolidate certain schools, not have five in a small area, but to have one big school. How economically feasible is this done? Because this is at the end of the day, taxpayer money. Dhananath Fernando 34:51 Absolutely. So, Jaree, the solutions are very complicated. I must first admit that, like you cannot expect this to be implemented like from next year for. Grade of school admission, but on the point on like langamma pasal or honduran pasal, you can see a classic in economic terms. You call the unintended consequences. Now even Anushka said in terms of the scoring that they give, the highest is for the distance. Like the lesser the distance, you get highest months. Right. So pretty much it's an incentive given for kids to get into the closer school, because you are assured to get to the closer school because the distance is limited, higher chance that you get into the school. But there are some unintended consequences. So what people had thought was okay. Since I wanted to get into a better school, I basically change and alter all my addresses and somehow get closer to a school that I am not supposed to be in, but to get the mark. So it's a unintended consequences to begin with on keep giving the distance and langma pasarodam pasal. It doesn't mean the langma pasar on the pasar concept is a bad concept. But we have to understand on the realistic world, things have also been changed because the all schools are not the same. Yeah, charindra chandrasena 36:03 yeah. No, no, but but I think the idea of that that this is I think under President Ranil or President Gotaba I don't remember which one. The idea of that was exactly the opposite of what what could happen is that you are discouraging parents from going to the Colombo Seven Colombo schools by improving the facilities Dhananath Fernando 36:26 correct charindra chandrasena 36:26 at your Dhananath Fernando 36:28 local town school. No, no, absolutely. charindra chandrasena 36:30 So, isn't it the complete opposite? No, Dhananath Fernando 36:33 it is right. The I think if I remember right, the Lagama Passama Paso concept was mainly, if I remember right, subjected to correction. Is mainly the distance. I think distance was always there, but it is coming for some time. While the I think the campaign was done as like Langambupasa, Lodhamma Pasala during that time, but always charindra chandrasena 36:53 of course it was Dhananath Fernando 36:53 the closest school. You if the research is lesser, you get higher marks. It's an incentive that was given, but very important as you very correctly said, that we have to invest on the schools to make it make it happen. In that sense, I 100% go with. I mean, what President said was right because you cannot run a school with like five students or 10 students. You have to consolidate that. But when you're consolidating again, the you know the the the the battlefield is not like you know it is quite different to the map that you see because when you go to rural areas, kids have to come 20 kilometres, 30 kilometres. It's a complete different context. But that's where Acharya also our housing and the land policy matters because what we have done over the years is even if there's a village with like 10 families, you try to get electricity there. You put like you know road and infrastructure there. Ideally, what we should do is when you have like 10 village, 10 families or something, we have to bring them closer to the centre because then your facilities like schools, hospitals, and everything accessibility is better. But instead of what we have done is okay. We had the strategy of penetrating to the deep pockets. There's nothing wrong with that. But then you have to forget about the land policy because you know then they'll be all scattered. You are not using the land productivity, productivity with with the with the higher productivity. But answering your question, yes, definitely we have to develop schools and also we have to look at sorry on the return on assets, or like other, how are we going to sweat the asset? Now, if you look at the schools, I think I mentioned it before. It's pretty much all weekends, schools are closed, and for about three months for the year, it's closed. And out of 24 hours, it operates maximum like what seven hours? charindra chandrasena 38:44 Yeah, seven seven to eight hours. Extracurricular say 10 hours. Dhananath Fernando 38:48 10 hours. Yeah. So basically, half of your like after building, like investing your laboratories and everything, your hard infrastructure is pretty much not operating for about 50% of the time, that is a massive. I mean, you have to have a mechanism on utilising these assets and generating revenue. I think I know again. I think it's not only common for schools. Even I remember there was some report about the University of Colombo, which I I study. Even I think their utility is I think less than 5% or something. I mean, you can see it if you go to Colombo University that their that their their playground is like heart of Colombo, right? I mean, it's massive, but you can see how it's being underutilised. I mean, Colombo. I mean, you can you can you know monetize it in multiple ways. So, point is, if we are serious about developing those schools, because otherwise it won't work. charindra chandrasena 39:49 Yeah, Dhananath Fernando 39:50 consolidating and giving, I mean, appointing proper teachers, training them, it has to have. It has to come with a revenue, like a financing model. That is coming from more sweating the same asset, having like you know after school like probably the daycare centres or like you know taking care of the kids after school and then bringing them working with public private partnerships, bringing what is needed for that community, bringing it there and monetizing it is the way that's charindra chandrasena 40:21 an interesting idea. I I just don't know whether the schools themselves will go for it, because they might say when we come in the morning the chairs are all over the place. There's you know it doesn't it smells bad because there's food here and so so many complaints could come, but it's a very interesting idea if you can actually monetize it for after hours work Dhananath Fernando 40:45 absolutely, and also look at the impact on the traffic. If especially in Colombo and like the urban areas, I mean you have two three traffic cycles, right? Seven like 637 30. You have one, then the office one there's nine, and again you have like 132 30 there's one again like 4:30, the government office, and then 5:30, 6. I mean, you are wasting lot of resources because your entire ecosystem is not aligned. But in other schools, it doesn't mean that you don't come and I'm not an educationalist. How can a kid can we stay at school from 7:30 to like 5:30? That's not definitely the idea. But I'm sure there are ways that where we can model it differently. charindra chandrasena 41:26 That's that's quite interesting. On on this model, Anushka, Speaker 1 41:32 yeah, charindra chandrasena 41:33 which you mentioned the U.S. Yes, which other countries have similar models? So Speaker 1 41:38 Singapore runs the same model. Singapore has it, while Singapore and the UK. charindra chandrasena 41:43 Singapore, the size of the country is small. So yeah, is there a comparable example to Sri Lanka? I mean, if you look at a Speaker 1 41:52 bigger country like Australia, which is bigger than the moon, they run it. They have in in Victoria, and I've read even in the New South Wales they run the same model, so it's not impractical. It's a fact. It's just a matter of implementation. And I think if we have a system where everything is done by the Ministry of Education, we can build trust within the Ministry of education and trust and stability. Having stability is the best way in which this model will work, because reading on the New York, about 50% around 50% 1000s, 1000s didn't get their top five preferences back in the 1990s, and then when Alvin Roth introduced this model in New York, there was just a few, a small person. Don't remember the exact number, but a small person that you know were left out. But the matching worked; they at least got within their top three preference. So this doesn't happen in Sri Lanka. So people don't trust the system, and the fact that there's a wide opportunity and you know technically a hand lend out to cheat. I think anyone would do anything to give their children the best school, you know. And one thing in Sri Lanka is the fact that one thing in Singapore, sorry, is the fact that they have segmented their schools. So all schools have, you know, now most most schools we have from one to 13 or one to 12, right? But Singapore and even in the UK, they are segmented. So schools don't have one to 13; they have one to five. They have a primary, and they have a secondary, and then they have a tertiary. So when you have three different steps to enter the one-shot fight or the one-shot competition you have, okay, I have to get by grade one, otherwise I won't have an opportunity. Reduces because you can try during primary. If you can't through performance, you can then try to secondary, and if you can't secondary, maybe you have a shot at tertiary. So this reduces reduces the pressure for both the governments, their institution, and also the school, and gives the and also reduces pressure on kids, because you know kids pressure parents, parents also pressure the kids to get into good schools. So I feel like this will lack reduction of the pressure on children and parents will improve productivity. Yeah. charindra chandrasena 44:23 Finally, Anushka, is there have you done sort of an estimate on what the cost of this will be? Speaker 1 44:29 Not really. No. I think. charindra chandrasena 44:32 But is it is it going to be in your estimation? Is it going to be more costly or less costly than the current system. Speaker 1 44:43 I'm sure it will be a little costly initially because there has to be training. There has to be phase rollouts. You know, we have to initiate this. You know, first in an area, test it out, get feedback. So initial investment will be higher. So we will definitely have a little. Of investment training, but charindra chandrasena 45:02 that's the that's the that's the sort of foundation foundation foundation for anything seed capital if we call it that yeah and then in the long run the benefit not it's not Speaker 1 45:12 just us it's technically the human capital will benefit because I saw a news article just before this podcast that construction some construction companies are aiming to bring 75,000 workers from foreign countries. So that's all to do with a lack of labour, lack of skill in Sri Lanka. Why are we paying foreign foreign workers when we can, you know, try to get them from our own country, so I feel like it will be expensive initially, but is it really expensive if we cut down bribery? If we, you know, throw out corruption, you know, especially with charindra chandrasena 45:54 the mandate of this gun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, eradicate corruption. Yeah. Speaker 1 45:58 So is it really expensive money-wise? If you think about throwing corruption out the window, charindra chandrasena 46:05 good thought to end with. Before we go, you have a message. Yes, Dhananath Fernando 46:11 a formal announcement. So yes, so thank you very much for watching us, and if you want to contribute for the great good work that we do, you can become an advocacy insider, like what Anushka has studied on this matching market, we are thinking about the ideas for the future to improve productivity and improve the well-being of Sri Lankan citizens. And we are an independent think tank, and we don't want to, and and we would like you to invest on us. Then we have more resources to to invest and research about the the the thing that Anushka basically mentioned, and we have multiple projects like that which will help the policy discourse. And it's important that we keep our independence at the same time. So that's where you can support us as Advocata insiders. And additionally to supporting the all work that we do, you also help the improving the economic literacy of fellow Sri Lankans, and at the same time, you will also get additional benefits that there'll be in Singhala an analysis about the rupee. I mean the exchange rate, the land market, the vehicle market, and there'll be a stock market segment that has all already been released. So there are multiple quite I mean not the inside information but exclusive information that you can access by becoming an inside. It's just 12,000 rupees per year, 1000 rupees a month. It's a small investment, and there are multiple tiers. Even you can try out the 36,001, which is just 3000 rupees per month. So try to become an advocacy insider and support the work that we do, the work that Anushka does. There are multiple other researchers who study on interesting stuff, and not only we are studying and we are trying to bring it to the policy discourse and get the policy reforms done, keeping our independence. And that's why you should become an insider. charindra chandrasena 48:04 All right, great. So interesting discussion today, and interesting thoughts actually for for policy makers to think about both from an economics and an educational point of view. We'll see where this education, you know, halal is next week, and then we can incorporate a bit of a different element to our discussion as well. But thank you, Anushka, for joining us today and for that that interesting analysis and and proposal. And Dara, as always, you know, you're the you're the heart of this show. Dhananath Fernando 48:40 Thank you, and yeah, we'll try to. If Anushka has other interesting ideas, are depending on the topic, otherwise Riyadh will or like someone else. Exactly, charindra chandrasena 48:49 exactly. All right, great. Thank you both of you, and we'll see you next week. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank Speaker 1 48:55 you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai