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Sri Lanka Education and Ethnic Conflict
During the first fifteen years after independence, students
sought a university degree primarily to qualify for service in
government, which remained by far the major employer of
administrative skills. Liberal arts, leading to the bachelor of
arts degree, was the preferred area of study as a preparation for
administrative positions. Because the university exams were
conducted in English--the language of the elite--the potential
pool of university applicants was relatively small, and only 30
percent of all applicants were admitted. By the mid-1960s, the
examinations were conducted in Sinhala and Tamil, opening the
universities to a larger body of applicants, many of whom were
trained in the vernacular languages in state-run secondary
schools. At the same time, university expansion slowed down
because of lack of funds, and it became impossible to admit the
increasing numbers of qualified candidates; by 1965 only 20
percent of applicants were admitted, and by 1969 only 11 percent.
Those students who did manage to enter the university followed
the traditional road to a bachelor's degree, until neither the
government nor private enterprises could absorb the glut of
graduates. In this way, the direction of educational expansion by
the late 1960s led to two major problems surrounding the
university system: the growing difficulty of admissions and the
growing irrelevance of a liberal arts education to employment.
The big losers were members of the Sinhalese community, who were
finally able to obtain high school or university degrees, but who
found further advancement difficult. Frustrated aspirations lay
behind the participation of many students in the abortive
uprising by the People's Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna--JVP) in 1971
(see Sri Lanka - Independence
, ch. 1).
During the colonial period and the two decades after
independence, the Sri Lankan Tamil community--both Hindu and
Christian--outstripped the Sinhalese community in the relative
percentage of students in secondary schools and university
bachelor of arts degree programs. As the government increasingly
fell into the hands of the Sinhalese, however, possibilities for
government service declined for Tamil students. Tamil secondary
schools then used their strength in science curriculums to
prepare their students in science and medicine, and by the 1960s
Tamils dominated the university student bodies in those fields.
Thus, at precisely the time when Sinhalese bachelor of arts
candidates found their careers thwarted by changes in the job
market, Tamil science students were embarking on lucrative
professional careers. Sinhalese agitation aimed at decreasing the
numbers of Tamil students in science and medical faculties became
a major political issue.
Overt political favoritism did not eliminate the dominance of
well-trained Tamil students until 1974, when the government
instituted a district quota system of science admissions. When
each district in the country had a number of reserved slots for
its students, the Sinhalese community benefited because it
dominated a majority of districts. Tamil admissions ratios
remained higher than the percentage of Tamils in the population,
but declined precipitously from previous levels. In the 1980s, 60
percent of university admissions were allocated according to
district quotas, with the remaining 40 percent awarded on the
basis of individual merit. This system guaranteed opportunity for
all ethnic groups in rough approximation to their population
throughout the country.
Although the admissions controversy and the quota system
resulted in a more equitable distribution of opportunities for
Sri Lankans in general, they damaged the prospects of many
excellent Tamil students coming out of secondary schools. The
education policies of the government were perceived by educated
members of the Tamil community as blatant discrimination. Many
Tamil youths reacted to the blockage of their educational
prospects by supporting the Tamil United Liberation Front and
other secessionist cells
(see Sri Lanka - The Political Party System
, ch. 4;
Sri Lanka - The Tamil Insurgency
, ch. 5). Large-scale improvements in
education had, paradoxically, contributed to ethnic conflict.
Data as of October 1988
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