Initiatives to Promote Ethnic Harmony through Universities

The Ministry of Higher Education has taken a welcome initiative in addressing some of the critical issues in the university education in Sri Lanka by promoting certain skills and attitudes among undergraduates who could be better employed and utilized for the future development of the country.

The whole initiative called the “Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century” (HETC) is now launched on a World Bank loan and offers University Development Grants (UDG) initially for three years, from July 2010 to June 2013, which could be extended for another two years upon the successful completion of the initial period.

Among the skill development initiatives, foremost are the enhancement of IT skills and the improvement of English skills. The purpose is to make the university programs, particularly in the arts or social science streams, relevant to the country’s economic development. Concomitant is the objective of strengthening the social relevance by strengthening ethnic harmony within and through university education. The project is virtually a brainchild of Professor Wiswa Warnapala, Minister of Higher Education, who has obtained the necessary approval of the Cabinet.

Importance

As the country may have to go a long way in addressing the existing mistrust and apparent political frictions among various ethnic communities, exacerbated by opportunistic political leaders of all sides, the initiatives in the university sector could be considered much needed, relevant and long-awaited. While the university sector could be considered relatively free from some of the vagaries of ethnic frictions, whatever the progress the universities could make will hopefully have a sobering affect on the larger society.

All aspects of the UDG initiatives are commendable at least in programmatic terms irrespective of the misgivings people have on World Bank loans or the way those loans are utilized in certain contexts. However, the comments of this article limits to the ethnic harmony component considering its primary political and social importance in the post-war scenario. It is always better that if Sri Lanka could initiate and implement reform programs on its own without depending on loans or grants. However, the existing reality is little far away from that objective and hence is the need for loans or assistance.

The Directors of the Project are now conducting training for the university academics who would be involved in formulating, proposing and implementing the UDG programs. In deciding on funds that could be accessed by respective universities, the UDG Project has correctly given much priority to the universities in the North and the East and secondly to the recently established universities like Rajarata, Sabaragamuwa or Uva Wellasa. These universities have a higher allocation of funding per student than the long established universities like Colombo or Peradeniya and Sri Jayawardenapura or Ruhuna.

Objectives

Ethnic harmony can be defined as a condition where different ethnic communities could co-exist peacefully. This is the minimum. Ethnic harmony also relates to development without which development might not be achieved or meaningless. Ethnic harmony entails two main components: (1) low visibility of boundaries and (2) high level of positive interaction. The alternative term given in the project is ‘ethnic cohesion.’

If there are no boundaries, in terms of language, dress or practices, obviously there are no issues of ethnicity. Harmony or cohesion does not mean to eliminate boundaries. The objective is to lessen or reduce at least the rigid boundaries. For example, monolingualism is a rigid boundary. Speaking in the link language (English) or learning the others’ language (Tamil or Sinhala) or knowing the others’ culture would undoubtedly reduce the rigid boundaries. The level of interaction is the most important component which would also depend on other factors like knowledge, attitudes, threat perceptions etc.

The specific objectives of ethnic harmony activity at the university level could be considered mainly of three fold.

• To maintain and promote ethnic harmony within the university (student and staff).

• To produce graduates who would promote and contribute to ethnic harmony in the country.

• To contribute to ethnic harmony in policy terms in the country as an academic community.

The objectives are largely self-evident. Any conflict, whatever the degree, within a university is destructive. It can further be argued that multi-ethnic universities in countries like Sri Lanka are more productive and socially relevant; and graduates produced with broader outlooks of multi-ethnicity, whatever the field, are more industrious other than being socially responsible.

Overall Picture

If we take the whole of the university system, the ethnic composition looks like the following as at present.

The above picture is akin, more or less, to the picture in the country with few deviations. However, when we take individual universities, the picture may be largely different. There are two broad types of universities: multi-ethnic and mono-ethnic. For example, the University of Ruhuna (Sinhalese) or University of Jaffna (Tamil) is largely mono-ethnic while the University of Colombo or the University of Peradneiya is primarily multi-ethnic. Therefore same kind of activities might not work.

There are two kinds of activity that universities could conduct to promote ethnic harmony: intra-university and inter-university. For universities with multi-ethnic composition, the best would be to concentrate on intra-university activities. For universities with largely mono-ethnic composition, the best would be to go for inter-university (cross-university) activities to achieve the same objective. In this respect, two or three universities could combine to cooperate. The present paper however focuses mainly on multi-ethnic universities and activities that they could possibly conduct.

The necessary or desirable activities under ethnic harmony should be worked out by individual universities. They should first assess the exact problems of ethnic harmony both within the particular university and in relation to the larger society. It is advisable to involve both students and staff in this process, however, keeping it in mind not to get distracted by incidental or ephemeral issues.

One should not rely on compiling statistics alone. Statistics do not themselves talk about the issues or problems of harmony. This is something we have to assess through several other reliable means. Survey and focus group discussions would be the best methods in assessing the level of ethnic harmony in a particular university. The record of (previous) incidents is also an index.

Three Models of Harmony/Cohesion

There can be three models where ethnic groups exist within a university context. These can be named as (1) harmonious (2) neutral (3) non-harmonious. These three can also be understood as cooperative, neutral and non-cooperative. The harmonious model is what the UDG program is aiming at within the university system. This is not just an ideal but a necessary and realistic condition that the universities need to achieve. Some explanations of these three models or situations are as follows.

Harmonious Model: Visibility of boundaries is low in terms of language, dress or practices. Medium of instruction probably is the same (English) for all students. Multi-ethnic class room is the norm. Teachers are from different ethnicities but not vocal of their identity. Level of interaction is high in class, outside, in terms of friendships and extracurricular activities. Students eat together and live together in hostels or boarding places. Harmony among staff is reflected in joint research and papers by multi-ethnic groups. A harmonious model is believed to have existed at the University of Ceylon in the 1950s.

Neutral Model: Ethnic boundaries are visible but moderate in terms of language, dress and practices. Students may be physically separated by the medium of instruction. Multi-ethnic class is rare unless consciously organized. Bi-lingual teaching may be available but rare. Students interact with teachers across ethnic barriers but with effort. There is no tension. Different ethnic groups exist side by side. Staff interacts across boundaries but keep close friendships within respective groups. Joint research or papers are rare. This model became predominant in the 1960s and 1970s.

Non-Harmonious Model: Ethnic boundaries are clearly visible in respect of language, dress and practices. Students are formed into clear ethnic groups. Even if there are common classes, the students immediately separate themselves into their own enclaves. Non-harmonious situation could exist irrespective of common medium of instruction. Often there are instigators or spoilers to exacerbate mistrust and misunderstanding. The teachers may be helpless or unconcerned. There can be divisions among the teachers themselves. Many of the universities succumbed to this model in the 1980s and thereafter.

It might be important for each university to assess at what levels its students and even staff co-exists in terms of ethnic cohesion/harmony and work out activities to improve or upgrade their harmony. For example, while the staff may remain ‘neutral’ in ethnic harmony, the students may exist in a ‘non-harmonious’ manner or vise versa.

Necessary Approach

The existence of different configurations of ethnic harmony (cohesion) will be the outcome of several factors. The country situation at large might be the key factor. The end of the war in this sense is an opportunity or a golden opportunity to promote ethnic harmony in a sustainable manner. But the same factor might also be an obstacle.

There can be some suspicions about the intensions of the program. Those may come from the minority community or the majority community. These may have to be alleviated if the program has to be an unqualified success. As the Sinhalese are the overwhelming majority in a large number of universities, except in the North and the East, some of the initiatives should come from them towards the other ethnic communities. This should work the other way round in the North and the East.

The second requirement is the most ‘scientific’ approach that the program has to adopt. The activities under ethnic harmony have to address some key questions obstructing the cohesion. Peripheral activities to the issue however much they are attractive in academic terms or dear to respective academics might not reap results. The universities have to find out the exact or specific root causes and analyze them.

The most important is to work out what activities that universities could initiate. Of course it is up to the respective universities to decide, given the specific situation, but the following are some general ideas on possible activities.

The activities should address directly or indirectly the two components of our definition: (1) the visibility and (2) interaction. Reducing ‘visibility of boundary’ is mainly a voluntary matter for individuals and there is nothing much a project could do except creating awareness and education. What the project could specifically aim at is mainly the increased interaction and cooperation. This could be done both among the students and the staff alike. This again cannot be done in an artificial manner.

Knowledge Factor

Knowledge factor is the most important in ethnic harmony and cooperation. This means knowledge about different ethnic/religious cultures and languages. This could be done through (1) teaching/learning (2) production of educational material (3) seminars and workshops and (4) joint projects/activity.

A best method of bringing necessary knowledge to the undergraduates is to introduce a formalized ‘Course Unit in Multiculturalism’ at the first year foundation level in a multi-ethnic classroom setting followed by other activities in succeeding levels and years. The emphasis should be on commonalities and not differences.

The curriculum of such a Course Unit should be carefully drafted to incorporate both lessons and activities on multiculturalism suitable to the Sri Lanka context. The activity component also could consist of language practice of the others in an interesting and an innovative manner. For example, a “Mind Your Language” (not Raja Kaduwa!) exercise might be useful.

Alternatively, the project could introduce Certification on Multiculturalism like in the case of other two main activities of ITC and English. The knowledge on and disposition towards multiculturalism could be considered a necessary skill or orientation for employment.

A Mechanism

A most important need of the project activity would be its sustainability. A mechanism could be designed and implemented as a sub-activity to achieve this objective. For example, the setting up of a Multi-Cultural Centre could be such a mechanism. The title can be different. It could simply be “Multicultural Centre” or “Sinhala/Tamil/Muslim Brotherhood” or any other.

The creation of a Centre for ethnic harmony is important. The model can be something like any other university centre. There may be some misgivings about university centres at various universities but the importance is that it could survive and continue the task/s even after the project period. It could be a specialized centre. It could create opportunities for interested academics with the support of the students to pursue the objective in the long term. The centre can be for the whole university situated in an appropriate place with Units or Focal Points in all Faculties. It could plan, coordinate and implement activities more effectively. It could raise funds from outside particularly after the project period.

Ethnic harmony in universities and in the country is important. I would have preferred a better allocation (more than 5-10 percent) for this activity under UDG given its critical importance. In implementing the present project and allocation, what I would suggest is mainly the creation of a Centre and Certification on Multiculturalism. The latter is in addition to a Foundation Course.

A Centre is important. It is through a Centre that exact multicultural educational programs could be implemented. These programs could entail (1) teaching/learning (2) production of educational material (3) seminars and workshops and (4) joint projects/activity. What is proposed in essence is the following.

This article is based on a presentation made at a training session of the UDG Project.

- Asian Tribune -