We don’t encourage privatisation of education - World Bank
The World Bank Colombo office yesterday disputed the much publicised claim by the university students that moves are afoot to privatise education in Sri Lanka in compliance with a WB directive.
Referring to the ongoing wave of agitation mounted by university students alleging that the World Bank is backing the privatisation of education in Sri Lanka, the World Bank’s Country Director Peter Harrold said that the World Bank does not encourage privatisation of government schools or universities.
"On the contrary, the World Bank supports education policies that seek to strengthen the public schools and universities, especially to produce good citizens and capable leaders, managers and workers for the country," Country Director Harrold said in a statement titled ‘World Bank Policy on Free and Private Education."
"The World Bank supports the provision of universal access to free public education for all school children. The World Bank also supports government universities that provide tuition free undergraduate education. Based on our policy of assisting governments to deliver free public education, we have assisted the Sri Lankan public school and university system over a period of 15 years with resources totalling in excess of 200 million US dollars. This assistance has been channelled through the Ministry of Education and the Provincial Education Authorities, and been directed primarily at expanding access to education for poor and disadvantaged communities, and improving the quality of education in rural, estate and poor urban areas.
The World Bank does not encourage privatization of government schools or universities. On the contrary, the World Bank supports education policies that seek to strengthen the public schools and universities, especially to produce good citizens and capable leaders, managers and workers for the country.
The World Bank has never had "conditions" to promote privatization of education. In addition, the policy position of the Government of Sri Lanka on public education is abundantly clear. The Government’s July policy statement states "The existing free, state education system of the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors will be preserved, strengthened and developed" (page 30).
The World Bank does believe that it valuable to encourage private tertiary education institutions in addition to the free public universities in Sri Lanka, as only a small proportion (less than 3%) of secondary school completers in the country are able to gain entrance to public universities. Developing countries around the world are encouraging private tertiary education institutions to operate along side public universities. These, include East Asian countries such as South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Central and Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania, and Central Asian countries such as Armenenia, the Kyrgyz Republic and Ulwaine. In addition, all Sri Lanka’s major South Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan have growing private tertiary education Sri systems operating parallel to the public university education system. It would be a loss to.
Lanka if it failed to keep up with global trends among developing countries. The World Bank supports the development of a state accreditation system for private tertiary education institutions so that the government can ensure quality standards for parents and students investing in education in such institutions.
The World Bank also does not encourage the closing down of small government schools in rural areas. Instead, the World Bank supports the improvement of quality and the equitable allocation of resources to rural schools. The World Bank also recognizes that, as the economy develops and rural populations move to urban centres, the government will need to expand urban schools and consolidate classes in rural schools that are too small to support a full range of subjects. Again, this is a process that takes place in virtually every country in the world as economies develop. The World Bank supports the policy of the government to ensure that, in this process of population migration and urbanization, children in rural communities are not deprived of access to good quality education."(http://www.island.lk/2004/10/23/news1.html)
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