Sri lanka is one of the few countries which provide primary secondary & tertiary (university level) education free of charge to citizens. Free education act forwarded to parliament under the guidance & leadership of Hon. C.W.W. Kannangra has opened a new door to the underprevileged people in sri lanka to educate their children and make a bright future for them. There are thousands of youths in sri lanka from poor families who have taken the advantage of free education to become well educated respectable figures in the society.
When considering about higher education there are several universities and many other public higher education institutions in the country. All of them provide tertiary education to a considerable number of students who has passed the GCE A/L exam well. Over the time as a result of the population growth there is a remarkable increase in the number of students who pass GCE A/L exam exceptionally well and eligible for university entrance. But relative to the amount of qualified students there is a huge lack of space and facilities in our university system. Governments came to power in past few decades were not interested in addressing this problem which eventually became a major flaw in sri lankan higher education system. Students who have good results but couldn’t afford university entrance have to struggle for their lives with out hope of a better future. approach of recent governments’ towards free education wasn’t positive because it is non profitable. But the truth is expecting direct financial profit from education sector of a country is rather meaningless. However the country gets indirect profit of education in several ways. Free education has helped sri lanka to be a country with a highest literacy among people. Education always helps to develop social stability and social equality in a country where free health and education are the only relief of poor people. When the people of lower social layers have the acess to higher education free of charge despite their poverty being a barrior they likely to be law abiding citizens rather than criminals who damage the social stability. As a result of free education youth from every social class have been able to contribute to the development of sri lanka by rendering their invaluble service to the country.
Free health services and free education are the last left assests of our country where every gap of inequality is widening in the shade of liberal capitalism which will eventually lead to disastrous consequences. The present government is also persuing the same path of paralysing free education and legalizing private universities even without the least sensitivity towards the future of next generation. Instead of increasing the government expenditure to strengthen the state education they are seeking ways to cut down the expenses.
It is apparent that the government is not going to take a step back in it’s attempt to setup private universities. Even though the private university bill has been withdrown by the government due to the protests from university students and teachers they are still taking many actions to weaken the free education. In this crucial time every ones’ obligation is to raise voice to protect the golden tree of free education which gave us shelter for several generations.
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